Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Bard Desires Compilation and Analysis/Conversion
Azherae
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
This week's Compilation is about Bards. As always, references have been taken only from this official thread and this unofficial(?) thread.
Disclaimer: While I don't play Bard, I do have a Bard in my group. This week, I have not made a 'requests' thread because my group's Bard has no requests outside of things that were noted from the threads. This makes it harder to check for bias, but the two posters from whom many of the structure points will be taken, @maouw and @daveywavey, are active enough that they may comment to correct and negate any biases that slip in.
Things that Bard-interested people wanted, mostly easy to sort compared to other threads so far:
Bards are much less complex because they have a stronger core identity usually, and secondary archetypes are just to help them. They already do a little of everything, so they're just deciding which part they want to do a little more of. This is probably why no Minstrels had anything in particular to say. They just need Intrepid to 'hit the right notes', and all will be well. By contrast, undecided Bards just don't know yet. The schema must therefore focus on how to make things the most rhythmic, the least 'directly tied to music', and the most 'able to fit on one or two hotbars'. Simplicity was sacrificed to build this schema, so expect to have to keep track of a lot when reading it. You might want a chart...
Round of Applause if you got through all that, but it actually illuminates the issue quite well. Bards are complicated. Games either usually make them linear and simpler, causing the 'buff-bot' complaint of many, or they have massive ability and spell lists that can't reasonably go on a Hotbar, far less 'receive dynamic Augments'. It's quite helpful that most Bards didn't have very specific wishes, since the few outliers start to stretch the concept of design hard. Here's the expanded summary of their trends:
After running numerous simulations on this and the possible Augments, it seems impossible to give over 90% of Bards what they desire, at the same time, if using my Reverse Engineered Augments List (new thread source since it's easier and the surrounding conversation has slightly more relevance anyway, it's halfway down page in a quote).
This doesn't seem to be an issue with the concepts of Augments or how they're applied, but rather the general difficulty of 'finding good places to put enough Offensive Bard skills'. Therefore even with the solution of 'here, use this skill repeatedly so you can get the Augment every time', there are some more specific requests that don't have any simple direct ways to achieve them. So my verdict for 'can we give all the Bards everything they want' is 'almost, but not quite there'. This is only for the current system, but even with a different skilltree, the conflicting goals will be rough.
And as always...
THIS POST IS IN NO WAY AN EXPLANATION OF WHAT INTREPID IS ACTUALLY DOING
How many innate attack skills do you need for your concept of Bard to work? Do you want to use your Lute to help your group get loot, or defeat your enemies as a Beat Poet? 90% stuffed into one schema is still pretty good, but can we go all the way?
Disclaimer: While I don't play Bard, I do have a Bard in my group. This week, I have not made a 'requests' thread because my group's Bard has no requests outside of things that were noted from the threads. This makes it harder to check for bias, but the two posters from whom many of the structure points will be taken, @maouw and @daveywavey, are active enough that they may comment to correct and negate any biases that slip in.
Things that Bard-interested people wanted, mostly easy to sort compared to other threads so far:
1. One Tellsword wanted ground circle buffs. Another wanted to be like Chanter from Aion. Another wanted this class.
2. One Magician wanted mobility. Another wanted to increase resistances. Another wanted wind magic.
3. One Siren wanted to buff resistances and elemental resistances. Another wanted hard CC and rhythm strikes. Another wanted damage reduction augments. Yet another wanted to actually tank a bit. Another wanted this class. Another provided considerable feedback which was used to build the schema ( @daveywavey ).
4. One Soul Weaver wanted stances. Another wanted to be off-healer. They were also willing to be a Song Warden. Two others wanted to siphon life from enemies. Another wanted to link allied health pools. Six others wanted this class.
5. One Trickster wanted some damage abilities and ventriloquism. One other trickster was not sure about secondary vs primary archetype. Two others wanted high mobility. Three others wanetd this class.
6. One Song Warden wanted damage and mobility.
7. Seven Minstrels
8. One Song Caller wanted to buff their pets.
9. One "undecided" had multiple philosophies which were used to help build the schema ( @maouw ). Another wanted to be versatile. Another doesn't want Bard to be a lame Wizard. There were fourteen others.
2. One Magician wanted mobility. Another wanted to increase resistances. Another wanted wind magic.
3. One Siren wanted to buff resistances and elemental resistances. Another wanted hard CC and rhythm strikes. Another wanted damage reduction augments. Yet another wanted to actually tank a bit. Another wanted this class. Another provided considerable feedback which was used to build the schema ( @daveywavey ).
4. One Soul Weaver wanted stances. Another wanted to be off-healer. They were also willing to be a Song Warden. Two others wanted to siphon life from enemies. Another wanted to link allied health pools. Six others wanted this class.
5. One Trickster wanted some damage abilities and ventriloquism. One other trickster was not sure about secondary vs primary archetype. Two others wanted high mobility. Three others wanetd this class.
6. One Song Warden wanted damage and mobility.
7. Seven Minstrels
8. One Song Caller wanted to buff their pets.
9. One "undecided" had multiple philosophies which were used to help build the schema ( @maouw ). Another wanted to be versatile. Another doesn't want Bard to be a lame Wizard. There were fourteen others.
Bards are much less complex because they have a stronger core identity usually, and secondary archetypes are just to help them. They already do a little of everything, so they're just deciding which part they want to do a little more of. This is probably why no Minstrels had anything in particular to say. They just need Intrepid to 'hit the right notes', and all will be well. By contrast, undecided Bards just don't know yet. The schema must therefore focus on how to make things the most rhythmic, the least 'directly tied to music', and the most 'able to fit on one or two hotbars'. Simplicity was sacrificed to build this schema, so expect to have to keep track of a lot when reading it. You might want a chart...
To give Bards everything they want seems to require a lot of rhythmic mixing and matching of abilities, to make the backline ones and frontline ones both happy, to allow them to not simply 'have to take every ability', and to provide spaces for useful Augments to be attached without causing them to be very limited in situations.
Taking the philosophy of one person and the specific desires of another (the ones that also work when solo), along with the noted wish from Intrepid to not force Bards to be musical, a system is possible.
It combines the idea of Narrative Goals with Themes, mix and match to get specific buffs. Simplicity is not our friend here, because variation is more important, as mentioned. The first Tier offers the most basic abilities
Tier 1. Narrative Goal: Triumph
Tier 1. Narrative Goal: Perseverance
Tier 1. Valor (Long CD; Triumph: Attack Up, Perseverance: Defense Up) (Points strengthen the effect)
Hopefully the names are usefully clear, but tooltips might manage to describe it all. An effective bard must take at least one Narrative Goal, and probably also activate Valor, but the important thing here is that a person could get to the next tier in the currently (placeholder?) system with just one of the three. Putting one point in each, however, allows the Bard to use actual abilities. though. They must activate Valor plus one of the others (in either order), and it will cause the effect, in an area. They could skip Valor by waiting until they level a bit more and putting all points into Narratives instead, to reach Tier 2.
Tier 2. Spirit (Triumph: MP Regen, Perseverance: HP Regen)
Tier 2. Grace (Triumph: Accuracy Up, Perseverance: Evasion Up)
Tier 2. Narrative Goal: Demoralize (Valor: Slow, Spirit: Damage Over Time, Grace: Enemy Accuracy Down)
Decisions actually start here. A Bard that wants to buff more expands their repertoire by unlocking Spirit and/or Grace. Debuffers focus on Demoralize. Total debuffers got to this point using only Valor, so they have rapid access to all, and to a skill that targets enemies, for similar and related Augments. Bards are much more likely to take the 'defensive' side of any Augment options available, as a Support class, so no direct attack is available even all the way to this point, only appearing in Tier 3, but Demoralize will still apply other debuffs to enemies. In the case of Tellswords, possibly cause it to become an Attack, but this might become a problem for the Bard later?
Tier 3. Narrative Goal: Epic (Valor: Attack Speed Up, Spirit: CC Resistance, Grace: Movement Speed Up)
Tier 3. Narrative Goal: Prose (Valor: Power Stat Up, Spirit: Mentality Stat Up, Grace: Dexterity Stat Up)
Tier 3. Flourish (Short CD; Physical Attack; Applies a state to the opponent; Valor/Triumph: Enemy Defense Down, Spirit/Perseverance: Enemy Attack Down, Grace/Demoralize: Enemy Evasion Down)
More Narratives are added here, but the same flow stays. A Bard can spread themselves out or specialize by adding more points. Flourish is a physical attack that makes use of either the Narrative or the Theme to determine the effect and consumes it. Backliners don't get to use the Debuffs applied to the physical attack without closing into range to do it, but that's possibly an irreconcilable point. Either the design duplicates the debuff, or it makes the Bard's melee style debuff unnecessary. The idea would be that a melee type bard would be able to 'simulate' having Defense Up by instead applying Attack Down, though. Flourish is where most Bards would get whatever Augment they want to target the most. A Jack of All Trades style support player just puts one point in everything. They'll definitely get to Tier 4.
Tier 4. Arcane Word: (Longer CD; Triumph/Valor: does Damage, Spirit/Perseverance: Short HP shield, Grace/Demoralize: Dispel Enemy Buff)
Tier 4. Regale: (Targets Single; long Cooldown, magnifies the effect of the current Narrative-Theme combination being used)
Tier 4. Cadence: (Changes effect capriciously, the Bard's position relative to the enemy when they strike results in a specific buff, and the positions of others can also determine their buffs, resulting in the 'Formation' concept mentioned by Intrepid)
Narratives and Themes are handled by this point. These are for the Bards that want specialized methods of applying or enhancing their effects. Requests for Area effects and so on are incorporated here, while Arcane Word handles some other requests. The difficult part here is mainly that each of these still only gets one Augment, but the Augment itself can be tailored toward either the enemy or the ally. A useful 'default' for Arcane Word, though, is another complex point. If you want the 'defense' version, use Arcane Word first with no Narrative or Theme active (problem is this requires Flourish unless Narratives and Themes always disappear once combined, but that is a point for discussion). Since Arcane Word ability won't activate a Defensive Augment on its own (as it technically 'targets nothing' in this case) then you can use the Defensive Augment on the Theme or Narrative. Arcane Word can have its own offensive Augment which activates when using it as the second part of the combination.
Regale and Cadence are much easier when it comes to this, Regale has the same problem though. As example, if using an Offensive-only Augment from Ranger that only works on enemies, but you Regale with a Defensive Narrative-Theme, then you just get nothing. Cadence has the same problem with Defensive Augments.
Tier 5. Finale: A big effect, that often applies both the buff and debuff of the current Narrative-Theme at the same time, targeted on the enemy, but a reduced duration.
Tier 5. Resonance: (Targets an area on the ground and applies the current Narrative-Theme combination as an area effect)
Tier 5. Encore (Repeat last non-buff - Arcane Word, Flourish, Demoralize, etc - to strengthen effect, or repeat last buff while doing other things - for when you do want to think as little as possible or have limited time, like in a Siege)
High level abilities are based around rhythm and versatility. At this point the Bard needs 'more actions'. Cooldowns start to become limiting. Things like 'I casted a buff and then did other things and now I want to cast it again but I don't want to do all the steps'. It's likely that many would want the Resonance effect before this, but it's actually quite powerful and relatively 'raid focused' so if it must go in a sequence, probably best here.
Taking the philosophy of one person and the specific desires of another (the ones that also work when solo), along with the noted wish from Intrepid to not force Bards to be musical, a system is possible.
It combines the idea of Narrative Goals with Themes, mix and match to get specific buffs. Simplicity is not our friend here, because variation is more important, as mentioned. The first Tier offers the most basic abilities
Tier 1. Narrative Goal: Triumph
Tier 1. Narrative Goal: Perseverance
Tier 1. Valor (Long CD; Triumph: Attack Up, Perseverance: Defense Up) (Points strengthen the effect)
Hopefully the names are usefully clear, but tooltips might manage to describe it all. An effective bard must take at least one Narrative Goal, and probably also activate Valor, but the important thing here is that a person could get to the next tier in the currently (placeholder?) system with just one of the three. Putting one point in each, however, allows the Bard to use actual abilities. though. They must activate Valor plus one of the others (in either order), and it will cause the effect, in an area. They could skip Valor by waiting until they level a bit more and putting all points into Narratives instead, to reach Tier 2.
Tier 2. Spirit (Triumph: MP Regen, Perseverance: HP Regen)
Tier 2. Grace (Triumph: Accuracy Up, Perseverance: Evasion Up)
Tier 2. Narrative Goal: Demoralize (Valor: Slow, Spirit: Damage Over Time, Grace: Enemy Accuracy Down)
Decisions actually start here. A Bard that wants to buff more expands their repertoire by unlocking Spirit and/or Grace. Debuffers focus on Demoralize. Total debuffers got to this point using only Valor, so they have rapid access to all, and to a skill that targets enemies, for similar and related Augments. Bards are much more likely to take the 'defensive' side of any Augment options available, as a Support class, so no direct attack is available even all the way to this point, only appearing in Tier 3, but Demoralize will still apply other debuffs to enemies. In the case of Tellswords, possibly cause it to become an Attack, but this might become a problem for the Bard later?
Tier 3. Narrative Goal: Epic (Valor: Attack Speed Up, Spirit: CC Resistance, Grace: Movement Speed Up)
Tier 3. Narrative Goal: Prose (Valor: Power Stat Up, Spirit: Mentality Stat Up, Grace: Dexterity Stat Up)
Tier 3. Flourish (Short CD; Physical Attack; Applies a state to the opponent; Valor/Triumph: Enemy Defense Down, Spirit/Perseverance: Enemy Attack Down, Grace/Demoralize: Enemy Evasion Down)
More Narratives are added here, but the same flow stays. A Bard can spread themselves out or specialize by adding more points. Flourish is a physical attack that makes use of either the Narrative or the Theme to determine the effect and consumes it. Backliners don't get to use the Debuffs applied to the physical attack without closing into range to do it, but that's possibly an irreconcilable point. Either the design duplicates the debuff, or it makes the Bard's melee style debuff unnecessary. The idea would be that a melee type bard would be able to 'simulate' having Defense Up by instead applying Attack Down, though. Flourish is where most Bards would get whatever Augment they want to target the most. A Jack of All Trades style support player just puts one point in everything. They'll definitely get to Tier 4.
Tier 4. Arcane Word: (Longer CD; Triumph/Valor: does Damage, Spirit/Perseverance: Short HP shield, Grace/Demoralize: Dispel Enemy Buff)
Tier 4. Regale: (Targets Single; long Cooldown, magnifies the effect of the current Narrative-Theme combination being used)
Tier 4. Cadence: (Changes effect capriciously, the Bard's position relative to the enemy when they strike results in a specific buff, and the positions of others can also determine their buffs, resulting in the 'Formation' concept mentioned by Intrepid)
Narratives and Themes are handled by this point. These are for the Bards that want specialized methods of applying or enhancing their effects. Requests for Area effects and so on are incorporated here, while Arcane Word handles some other requests. The difficult part here is mainly that each of these still only gets one Augment, but the Augment itself can be tailored toward either the enemy or the ally. A useful 'default' for Arcane Word, though, is another complex point. If you want the 'defense' version, use Arcane Word first with no Narrative or Theme active (problem is this requires Flourish unless Narratives and Themes always disappear once combined, but that is a point for discussion). Since Arcane Word ability won't activate a Defensive Augment on its own (as it technically 'targets nothing' in this case) then you can use the Defensive Augment on the Theme or Narrative. Arcane Word can have its own offensive Augment which activates when using it as the second part of the combination.
Regale and Cadence are much easier when it comes to this, Regale has the same problem though. As example, if using an Offensive-only Augment from Ranger that only works on enemies, but you Regale with a Defensive Narrative-Theme, then you just get nothing. Cadence has the same problem with Defensive Augments.
Tier 5. Finale: A big effect, that often applies both the buff and debuff of the current Narrative-Theme at the same time, targeted on the enemy, but a reduced duration.
Tier 5. Resonance: (Targets an area on the ground and applies the current Narrative-Theme combination as an area effect)
Tier 5. Encore (Repeat last non-buff - Arcane Word, Flourish, Demoralize, etc - to strengthen effect, or repeat last buff while doing other things - for when you do want to think as little as possible or have limited time, like in a Siege)
High level abilities are based around rhythm and versatility. At this point the Bard needs 'more actions'. Cooldowns start to become limiting. Things like 'I casted a buff and then did other things and now I want to cast it again but I don't want to do all the steps'. It's likely that many would want the Resonance effect before this, but it's actually quite powerful and relatively 'raid focused' so if it must go in a sequence, probably best here.
Round of Applause if you got through all that, but it actually illuminates the issue quite well. Bards are complicated. Games either usually make them linear and simpler, causing the 'buff-bot' complaint of many, or they have massive ability and spell lists that can't reasonably go on a Hotbar, far less 'receive dynamic Augments'. It's quite helpful that most Bards didn't have very specific wishes, since the few outliers start to stretch the concept of design hard. Here's the expanded summary of their trends:
The Tellswords mainly wanted melee. The few Magicians wanted various small things. The Sirens wanted defense, though not all wanted to actually help tank. The Minstrels are easy to understand because they just want to be as Bard as possible. And the Song Caller wanted to buff their pets. Song Wardens and Tricksters mainly wanted mobility. Soul Weavers were the most Supportive of all. Unlike most classes so far, many of the undecided were moreso 'not specific'. Those that were, were undecided due to having too little information.
After running numerous simulations on this and the possible Augments, it seems impossible to give over 90% of Bards what they desire, at the same time, if using my Reverse Engineered Augments List (new thread source since it's easier and the surrounding conversation has slightly more relevance anyway, it's halfway down page in a quote).
This doesn't seem to be an issue with the concepts of Augments or how they're applied, but rather the general difficulty of 'finding good places to put enough Offensive Bard skills'. Therefore even with the solution of 'here, use this skill repeatedly so you can get the Augment every time', there are some more specific requests that don't have any simple direct ways to achieve them. So my verdict for 'can we give all the Bards everything they want' is 'almost, but not quite there'. This is only for the current system, but even with a different skilltree, the conflicting goals will be rough.
And as always...
THIS POST IS IN NO WAY AN EXPLANATION OF WHAT INTREPID IS ACTUALLY DOING
How many innate attack skills do you need for your concept of Bard to work? Do you want to use your Lute to help your group get loot, or defeat your enemies as a Beat Poet? 90% stuffed into one schema is still pretty good, but can we go all the way?
♪ One Gummy Fish, two Gummy Fish, Red Gummy Fish, Blue Gummy Fish ♪
2
Comments
A Magician would be someone who'd weave together several small spells to then end a fight in a grandiose conclusion.
A Minstrel would spin the right tale to inspire their allies to do great deeds.
A Sellsword would know which weak spots to strike to weaken a foe for the final takedown.
That's not to say that everything should be small and quick. There's always a place for a simple yet bold statement. However a Bard wants to play, it should be brimming with character and expression.
To address your questions:
Some tweaks:
First, I should correct one of my original philosophies: I originally thought that Bards should be "it's pointless to focus the bard" - but I've since realized that this identity actually belongs to the Tank, hence the MOBA adage: "don't focus the tank" ((though part of me really wants the ability to troll on Bards)). If bards are actually useful to their teams, then they will naturally become a high priority target in PvP.
Secondly, I don't know if someone has made this distinction already, but I think you could draw a really nice delinearization between the two support classes as: Clerics provide reactionary support, Bards provide pre-emptive support. Potentially this could mean:
- removes singular-contingency reliance on heals to sustain the team in a fight (if the bard can increase the survivablitiy of the team pre-emptively)
- Prevents overlap of responsibility in supportive roles (if the bard has pre-emptively mitigated incoming danger, it does not confuse the cleric's ability to heal)
- If you give bards the ability to magically shield allies (pre-emptive damage mitigation), Tanks can focus on front-lining (I believe there was talk about Tanks shielding allies, but I wonder if this confuses the Tank's role)
The way I see this is:Heal vs Shield
Cleanse vs buff/debuff
Resurrect vs ??
From reading your schema, I want a "set-up" ability that foreshadows a thematic change coming and "bursts" when the change kicks in. So that Bards read the battle, and their power spikes are placed on When they transition between their themes, rather than what the ongoing theme is - I'd argue it makes for more dynamic play (?). TRANSITIONS.
Finally, an off-the-cuff idea:
going off one of the suggestions for tethering the party health-bars - what if the tether also physically tied people together?
Then you could have a boss that tries to suck everyone away, but the bard can tether everyone to the Tank.
Or the bard can tether onto a highly mobile ally and travel with them. (tether to a rogue who climbs walls, or a mage who teleports behind a wall.)
I find I disagree, however, with how you presented the boundaries between Bard and Cleric or Tank, relative to preemptive support. I find that Clerics often spend a good deal of effort making sure that people don't take damage, as much or more as purely restoring the inevitable losses, and I'd hate for them to lose that as I think it would reduce their enjoyment and complexity similar to our own natural "buff bot" concern. This is partly where "heal bots" come from.
Instead, I would draw the line that Clerics are masters of healing and preemptive defense, while Bards are masters of aligning and empowering a party's flows and capacity overall.
Clerics often have:
- "Protection" style longer-term defense or magic defense buffs. Less flexible than our songs, but also less need to sustain them.
- Temp HP style preemptive defense.
- Hallowed Ground and the like, of course
- Some base status protection (a point of overlap with Bard outright, with perhaps some difference in which statuses, and how)
- Recovery over time effects (which we also share)
I don't think that having some overlap is a bad thing, even as I agree that it's important to have clearly defined individual class identity.
I feel it would be a travesty to take preemptive defense/preparation away from Clerics entirely, given how much time mine spends on preparing it. Instead, I feel defining masteries is more useful.
Bards:
- Provide strong area/party buffs, to align and enhance all aspects of our party's performance
- Have access to a broad variety of buffs, allowing us to tune our party's performance to many different situations or approaches.
- Little or no burst recovery - we're the "sustain" class.
- Stronger or more varied effects on enemies directly.
Clerics:
- Provide direct and burst healing, to recover from damage (obviously)
- Provide preemptive defense in various forms (Temp HP, various Protection spells) to "heal" damage before it happens.
- Have status recovery
- Have AoE burst heals
Tanks:
- Often share Temp HP and Protection/mitigation buffs, but these apply more to the Tank themself.
- Have various ways to take or prevent attacks intended for other party members ("Get behind me!", "You shall not pass!", etc)
Some types of tanks also have various forms of direct healing or morale improvement abilities. In Ashes I feel these are likely covered by augments. Still I'd not begrudge any form of Cleric/* the option for preemptive defense and many related buffs.
I don't think that a Cleric's preemptive defense in any way weakens or confuses Bard's definition.
The power of a Bard is in our versatility. If needed, we can double up on those preemptive defense style mitigation buffs, when our Cleric is busy, or the enemy is exceptionally dangerous, but we can also rely on our Clerics to handle that, and focus our efforts on enhancing our team's other synergies and perfecting our party's rhythm. I feel that embracing this sort of natural overlap creates deeper, stronger class definition, and allows for greater synergy and more interesting interactions.
Just my $0.02.
I'd be pretty sad to be relegated to heal-bot as a cleric too, hahaha!
I guess my main concern is that giving our party "strong" buffs is probably going to get balanced to less than 15% increased performance (because in a party of 8 members, 15% * 7 members = 105%, the equivalent of 1 person (the bard) being added to the party), which I don't think is enough to effectually change what options are available to our team. Which means we are still buff bots, just with extra buttons.
So I was searching for a mechanical way that we can contribute to the team dynamic.
But I think I agree with you, I don't want to steal from the cleric's identity.
The other option is that we lose AoE buffing for single-target buffing so that we can focus more power into individual members, and this lets them have moments where they can really pop-off with significantly more powerful buffs (up to 100% instead of 15%)
(another option that could be considered: if clerics are masters of the HP bar, we can be masters of the MP bar)
I just checked yesterday the Wiki page and Summoner is also classed as Support. I dont know to which extend. But they were talking about summoning Aegis. So im guessing depending of the second Archetype Summoner can also be either dps or Support
Then, I saw SongRune and realized this is a desires compilation thread; not a Ashes game design thread.
THIS POST IS IN NO WAY AN EXPLANATION OF WHAT INTREPID IS ACTUALLY DOING
If you play the flute well enough then everyone stops to listen - google "Flute of Destiny" (The Legend of Ron Burgundy - deleted scene) as my case in point!
And I'll drink to that!
Also here's a link to the Flute of Destiny that McMackMuck was talking about:
Be classy and play a guitar instead XD
You really didn't play FFXI?
You're making me wonder if Bard design/desire is actually convergent. Since you come to the '15%' value. That value comes from the base state vs time spent buffing thing though, and we have no information on their intended 'time spent actually doing the buff', for now. (FFXI is 6-8 seconds to sing one buff, about 2 attack rounds)
If they are open to suggestions, henceforth known as 'Future Guidance Feedback' to get away from the stigma, then you could probably say what you'd enjoy in terms of it.
If it were me I'd make Minstrel and Songcaller able to extend these or something with Augments, since I would expect that a higher percentage of those players would be in the 'I don't even care about personal DPS' group. They could then spend more time in the 'buff activation' state to get some bonus (probably duration would be safer than additional effectiveness for most buffs, but that's unclear too).
Then they could either 'gear to take advantage of the bonus' if they DID want to DPS, or 'gear for defense and increasing the bonus' if they didn't. A possible 'path to freedom'?
Yo @daveywavey as the resident Siren, any thoughts?
I'm quite excited about the possibilities for the Bard. I just hope it comes somewhere close to what I'm expecting.
Basically I was trying to figure out something. FFXI Bard is 'exactly as described by both you and maouw'. I have seen Bards in other games but I always assumed that the reason they didn't play like that, was the nature of the game in question. i.e. that any game with enough strategic depth would have the same aim, and that players all expected the equivalent of an FFXI Bard (whether their perspective on DPS and similar was that of the Minstrels, or that of the Tellswords, I will assume you to be in the 'Tellsword' camp based on things you've said)
If that wasn't the normal expectation of Bards, then it would imply that Intrepid could 'make something that completely went against every expectation I have' while still being 'the standardly agreed on thing for Bards to be', and that would mean a different approach to any conversation.
Basically, I'm biased now to assume that everyone who says they want a Bard but doesn't specify further, wants what you are describing, and I was checking to make sure it wasn't 'just FFXI Bard players bringing their own biases', and those biases would be strong.
We're talking 'An enemy General unit leader is a bard with an Evasion Up song so powerful that you must dispel it or you basically can't harm her significantly, while she consistently Lullabies you all to sleep and then has her batallion pummel you after raising their Attack to absurd levels'. Vuu Puqu is... an experience.
And therefore, capable of causing a bias strong enough to result in unjustified friction with those who have not had that... particular experience.
I need help interpreting that last sentence... friction between which ideas?
Vuu Puqu buffs vs 15% buffs?
As an outsider, Vuu Puqu sounds like the ideal Bard/Summoner starring in their own single-player game.
In your opinion, is it feasible for Bards to have Vuu Puqu level buffs if the counterplay is "dispell or get your own Bard"?
Its true the Paragon were kinda similar in a way. Thats if u were building them like that and not spear. I was always making mines more supports style cause the gameplay was fun.
No, Vuu is an outlier, by far. What I meant was actually something else.
Let's say that one views Bard as Support. This doesn't change. But your Bard can 'decide how much they support'.
Number crunching time.
You start with a Bard who has 70% of the DPS of a Fighter, and then they add one buff to give themselves 15% more attack, and another to give themselves 15% more accuracy, and now they are 'equal to a Fighter'.
In a smaller group, this should be all the Bard needs to do, to be acceptable (assuming you were willing to form a group with 2x Fighters). In a bigger group, now they have gone quite high. They added 30% to everyone else who uses those stats, and raised themselves to 'Fighter Level', so assuming people don't complain about them hitting the enemy, they have added, on average, 15% power to the party (let's assume 4 other members benefitting from just those two buffs) as compared to Fighter.
That's what I expect. A Bard can 'spend all their time buffing others to give a total of 100% or more power to the rest of the group' and never hit anything, or they can exist somewhere on that gradient. Vuu is the ridiculous example because she can just give 100%+ to herself which is something Bards are generally not 'allowed to do', but the overall idea would be 'the expectation is that the Bard can empower themselves enough that they don't have to spend all their time doing that and can join in the fray'.
So in Ashes with its 'balancing for 8v8' or 'large scale battles', you would need to think of the enemy Bard when they are with their team as 'the equivalent of Vuu'. You should never be able to think 'it's just a Bard, we just need to focus everything around them and thin out the numbers until it's just them'.
You'd have to think 'ok we need to either stop that Bard or dispel one or two of the buffs they are using'. Either because the buffs are strong or persistent enough that you must care (most Minstrels) or you have to worry about the Bard debuffing and hitting you themselves while you focus their allies (a Trickster).
I think I'm rambling, but overall, you cannot treat Vuu or any other FFXI Bard as 'just a buff bot' because of how that flow will go. You can't 'fight 8v8 and have it come down in the end to a 1v1 of the enemy Bard and you, not a Bard' and expect to win, because the group bought their Bard enough time to buff themselves to counter you, and they are more than a match for any other character using only those buffs and their regular DPS.
A Bard that is expected to 'channel all their strength into their allies' as part of their design might be fun when you have allies, but my experience and expectation would be 'Bards are amongst the strongest characters in combat scenarios if they build for it, they're just slower than others, and their buffs are strong through the size of their group and their understanding of rhythm and focus'.
As always, I have to check that what I consider 'obvious' is actually so. If someone told me 'what? no, Bards shouldn't be good in melee' my response would always be '???', but that's exactly what BDO does, for example, explicitly nerfing their 'Bard' in 1v1 so that the buffs can be better otherwise. I would always expect Bards to beat Fighters and Rogues in melee, as long as they aren't wearing their 'full support' gear (since those types don't normally have Dispels). And Vuu embodies that. You could, as a soloing style build (even before the content Vuu appears in got obsoleted by power creep) expect to win in 1v1 with other equivalent generals, the Samurai, the Ninja, even the Summoner if you were really really good, but by comparison Vuu is terrifying if you have no Dispel and you have significantly less chance to beat her in 1v1.
So where I would expect 'friction' is that point where we're talking about 'Bards that could generally win 1v1' because it feels like an obvious thing that can happen, and then people who have never played a game where a prepared Bard wins 1v1, expressing strong feelings to the contrary.
Classic Bard ability, but tweaked so that you can't kick bards and keep their buffs on you. xD
U.S. East
I'm definitely in the B party - haven't played an MMO where Bards are masters of 1v1 (nor FFXI) - so I've been tunnel visioned on team dynamics without considering the rest of the gradient. But now that you've pointed it out, I can see it.
The devs have said that Intrepid intends for Bards to be more attacky than my desire to be more supporty, but until now I interpreted this as "do more than buffs". From what you're saying, I realize being a melee front-liner means you'll probably have to offer more offense or tankiness in order to survive - I take your experience from FFXI as more compelling than what I have experienced (DnD bards are more about the roleplay elements than combat)
My closest experience comes from league, which isn't an MMO, but I think MOBAs are unequivocally useful to study skirmishing. League certainly has supports that can build damage and excel at killing people, but there are also supports that inherently (by design) cannot do this efficiently for reasons like:
- Low base attack speed/base attack stat, so can't make full use of "empowered basic attack buff"
- Cannot proc your own debuffs on enemies, only procs on ally's attacks
- Extremely mana draining to maintain aggression for extended periods
- Maintaining a spell effect means you can't attack at the same time
Each of which prevent these supports from "buffing themselves" (only the second one is explicit) and thus puts much higher incentive on buffing allies.These 3 champions are the closest to the bard stereotype :
- Sona - auras galore (functionally closest to the traditional bard - but ranged magic), with lingering bonus effects that only apply to herself. This caused her to bleed into non-supportive roles. She was hard nerfed and then later her abilities were redesigned with bonus mechanics to put her at a disadvantage when solo with no explanation for why they don't want her being played solo.
- Pyke - the game's only support who is melee but not tanky. Has an assassin burst combo, but he shares his kill bounties with allies who assisted in the kill (i.e. economic buff for team). He also started seeing play as a solo assassin, but this too was inexplicably leashed back to a supportive playstyle.
- Bard - literally named "Bard" but very untraditional in playstyle. His job is to wander as much as possible and leave health packs on the ground for his teammates. Playstyle is more like a magical scout. He cannot solo efficiently because all his abilities are designed for wandering the map.
All of this confirms that they keep bleeding into non-supportive roles unless they get forced into supportive playstyles. No explanation why they don't like certain supports being able to solo, it's not even mentioned in their Balancing Framework.So then, to my own opinion. I find DPS to be plentiful in MMOs, so I prefer to play a dedicated supportive role to make use of this abundance. I don't think that impinges on other bards who want to play a damage build - but I'm keen to hear more about what the FFXI experience is.
Does opting for a DPS build in FFXI reduce your class identity?
The main things to understand are that Bards are slow at any solo combat, and I mean slow. Because the design model of FFXI is very 'active defense' for non-tanks. If you are taking hits, you must stop dealing damage to deal with this, and Bards take particularly long to do this part.
There is another whole mechanic in that game that limits how much a Bard 'should' hit things. 'TP' is something used for special attacks. Enemies also have it. They get it from every person hitting them and it is based on how much they are hit, not how much damage is done (Assuming any damage is done). After a point, the Bard doesn't do enough damage to justify raising the frequency of the enemy's special attacks, in a large group. The reason I mention this, though, is because it can sometimes be the only reason not to hit the mob, and a group that doesn't care, or synergizes with the Bard's own special attacks, will still benefit, often significantly, from the Bard hitting things.
With that out of the way, the point is that it's very simple to change from 'Ok I am hitting things' to 'Ok I am buffing only' because most buffs don't rely very much on what Ashes calls 'waterfall stats'. Bard is the closest thing to a 'pure skill' class you can get, much of the time. Their debuffs can be affected and matter, but it takes very specific gear before most buffs are affected.
Your class identity as Bard is therefore almost entirely up to your playstyle and some small gear changes. In an interesting parallel, the thing that most affects it is your subjob, therefore.
If you choose a damage based one, you lose the ability to offer other support to your team, normally, and 'shouldn't' backline unless you are going to cause the 'too many special attacks' problem to an unmanageable level. If things go poorly, you can 'only' sing, you can't 'offer additional healing', and usually can't 'tank for a bit'. Most of the time though, you help with the 'Skillchains' (the special attack synergy mentioned), so you're expected to do this, to know them, to focus your control of the battle rhythm around them, and though you don't do a lot of that damage yourself, focusing on better gear for this purpose can meaningfully increase what damage you are doing.
If you choose a support based one, your ability to do damage is meaningfully reduced by comparison, as you would gain none of the bonuses from a damage/offense based secondary, so you're now usually 'part White Mage' and are expected to help cleanse Debuffs, apply secondary Heal Over Time, and maybe even add some actual healing in tough situations, between buffing cycles.
I believe most people consider these a meaningful change in identity. You're either explicitly 'helping to make the thing die meaningfully faster and leaving the healing to those who came specialized in that' (while buffing them to make them faster at it, as needed by the enemy type) or you're explicitly choosing to help with the healing (no other purpose to /WHM) and therefore increasing the party's 'speed' in the other way (you are casting MP regen buff that affects both you and the main WHM, so less rest is needed and more risks can be taken).
Depending on the enemy type and the skill of the other healer, this evens out. I believe the 'meta' was always opposed to DD Bards, but it's actually one of the few classes where it's hard to argue that it 'needs' to be so for most content where the enemy doesn't have powerful AoE.
So I'd say this:
"A Bard never loses what makes them good at being a Bard, their control of rhythm changes between defense and offense based on their secondary moreso than their gear until late levels."
Note that FFXI explicitly intended to maintain BRD ability to be like this, going so far as to make their Relic Armor body piece have Military Parade.