An Increased Focus on Bard instrumentality

Zhale

I've seen some other members in the forums post about this, and I thought I'd make this its own thread since I'm offering specific design advice.

In general I agree with the sentiment that a greater emphasis on the instrumentality of Bards is important. We don't want Bards to just be "Combat, but Music-Themed this time."

Here is my suggestion:
Apply "Virtuosity" for Out-of-Combat Bards actively playing music. This can optionally be extended to be instrument-specific bonuses, but read on for solutions if Intrepid don't want instruments to perform differently to one another.

Basically, while you are both out of combat and playing a melody you get "Virtuosity".

Virtuosity would alter your Melodies in a way that looks something like this:**

**: These numbers are obviously completely made up, don't read too much into them or think something is under/overpowered just because of a number you read here

• Drums: 75% More AoE, 75% Reduced Effect of Melody, Drum effects stack once with any other instrument, but generates no Counterpoint
• Lute: 50% Increased Effect of Counterpoint Build-up, 25% More Effect of Melody, 75% Less AoE

In this example, I assume that Counterpoint is made a forced behavior for Bards, and not something you manually have to spec into. I think it was Bucky who said in the livestream that they liked this enough to potentially just give it to all Bards irrespective of their passive trees.

So those are simple examples, but they could be extended to more advanced modifiers like:

• Applies 15% Movement Speed inherently (nice for drums?);
• More Effect per different Melody affecting your party (harp?)

Alternatively, if Intrepid would like the instruments to remain neutral, you can have these modifiers roll randomly on instruments so that if you want a specific mod for a specific instrument, you have to go out and play for it or perhaps craft it.

Or, probably more prudently, Intrepid can simply create a spec-line in the skill tree for 'Virtuosity' this way it utilizes existing systems. But the point is I would definitely like to see an option to be more instrument/music focused, and I think the best way to do that is to have an "Out-of-Combat Instrument Bonus"

Sengarden

I agree that there should be specialization paths for Bards who want to see greater use of their chosen instrument. At this point, with how infrequently it was actually being brought out, it seems more like an afterthought. I mentioned this on the Dev Feedback thread as well. I'll include that excerpt here with some slight adjustments (any numbers included are just variables used at a rough scale, and not necessarily well-thought-out stats):

"... One thing I would like to see is that if a player chooses to specialize in Melodies, that the buff they choose to get to their Melodic gameplay is tied to an increased span of time actually playing the instrument. I wasn't a big fan of how short a time the character is actually interfacing with their instrument, it kind of felt like an afterthought. If the bard doesn't choose to specialize in Melodies, then rattling off a short little ditty makes sense, but if that's their chosen mastery, then they should really be leaning into it.

For example, if the player chooses the Melody buff that allows them to stack/weave multiple Melodies into each other, then I think the duration of every Melody they play should be determined by how long they actively channel the ability/play their instrument before diving back into combat or beginning to play another Melody. So you could press the button for Cheerful Melody, play your instrument for ten seconds with no actions taken in between other than movement to get a full 20 second heal buff, break into combat to knock out a couple spells, then play your epic Melody for five seconds to get a 10 second movement speed buff in order to give your party a quick escape. Changing nothing about the player's in-combat investment into their music-making while adding the ability to passively gain buff duration and stack multiple buffs on top of each other seems a bit lop-sided in favor of reward over risk.

Alternatively, if the player chooses the Melody buff that increases the potency of the Melody over the length of its duration, I think the increase in power should only tick up for as long as the bard is actively playing the Melody, perhaps one tick up in power each second up to a cap of 10 seconds played. If they stop short of that by using any ability besides moving, the increase in power stops wherever they left off.

For bards that choose to specialize in instrumentation, this will add meaning and connection to their chosen instrument, give them opportunities to admire and show off whatever instrument appearances they've collected, and balance the risk/reward they take on by making an investment in that school of "magic". ..."

Lodrig

Do we even know the current intended status of Instruments? They were shown as simply a selection in the Bard skill tree which was purely cosmetic at the time which implied that no actual instrument items even exists. It sounds like you want to see that choice have a mechanical effect? I'm personally agnostic towards that as the mechancial systems looks well made so far.

BUT I think we should SEE the Bard holding (if not nessarily playing) their instrument as the default idle state for the character and Ideally they should play it durring ALL casting even weild it in combat as a melee weapon. I'll make my own posting on how I envision that working as it along VERY different lines from this thread.