Bard songs

[GM Oden]

The Idea Overview:
I'm reworking the bard songs so that I can add a new dot command to replace .lastsong and the need by some to use an easyuo macro for playing songs from the Gump. Keep in mind I believe the macro used by many is the one I wrote so this would be planned obsolescence on my part. With this rework I'd like to move bard songs away from injuring party members, this however is a tricky situation, a drawback in the form of a resource being used has to be put in play to prevent unending bard stacking in PvP and PvM.

The Command:
In short visit the link below, it's a small overview of the dot command, stuff is likely to change, song name might be replaced with song number for instance:
.PlaySong

Song Renaming Scheme:
Songs will for the most part remain the same, their names will change and in terms of damaging songs these will be begin with "Warsong" in their title. Transportation will turn into what I'm calling a multi part piece, where every 10 levels up to 85 you are unlock a new musical piece in the suite allowing you to mark up to 4 locations. The Gump for this will replace the shirty YesNo Gump and give you the option of self travel or party travel.

Party Specific Songs:
The real meat and potatoes I'd like to tackle first with bards is this, buffing and damaging aoe songs or spells not hitting unintended targets. This is a simple thing to add but for bards specifically needs to come with a drawback. My thoughts on this is to keep it simple, so songs need to use a resource and for me there's no better one to use than mana. Bards already have a pool of mana since they have magery, so I thought if I take a typical bard's mana base and start from there and scale bard songs so that at most a bard with say 60 mana can play their best damaging song 3 times, this would give me a good base for scaling everything to a bards mana base to again at scale give me the same effect a mage casting an 8th circle spell would have at Max mana, 150 mana converts to 3 8th circle spells cast in succession. I realize this will need testing but that's what a test server is for but if you guys want party specific songs for bards there HAS to be a drawback and mana I feel is the best way to move forward. It might make little sense for mana to be used but they are in the magic user category and do get some magery. Personally they're I think more of a fighter but Pangaea is back asswards.

Thoughts? Complaints? Jeers?

Note this will be tested before going live and I want feedback this is part of the grander scheme to clean up the casting systems and musicianship was the easier of the three or four we have. And this will also be part of the move to 099 so not anything we will see for a month and a half at the least live.

(Read my terrible news as to why the conversion is a month and a half now badness struck my PC thanks to Microsoft's latest patch)

[Glarundis]

Hmmm, I'm not sure what to say. This could be an interesting twist, but while mana prevents endless stacking, it doesn't prevent stacking and people could still get together and get some massive hits on incoming monsters. Sure this takes a few players and timing, but the damage done would be quite good aswell.

I'm not saying yes or no before testing, because numbers of bards could potentially makes this go over the top (but then again, so can bands of mages/necros/assassins/etc). I don't like the idea of not being able to play songs because I'm out of mana, but I do like the idea of songs using mana, could be a nice twist.

However, I'd rather have songs use mana if this meant songs were improved. It's a bit of a shame that 100 music or 100 + heighten + cloth has like a +2 different to boosting song (and to have decent numbers we need consonance instruments). Bards should be the best of the best blessers, and at prime musicianship the different is not so great when compared to another magic user. While a bit more of animal lore gives +1 or +2 in druid bless, a +1 or +2 in skills is a lot more desirable than +1 or +2 in stats. But I don't want to go offtopic now, perhaps you can be inclined to do a full revamp of the bard songs in the future.

My say is test it before you do anything about it.

[Zendrick]

The mana is a good idea because bard already has med. on avalon(where I’d played a bard most) the songs actually used stamina. And then there were a song which while you played it would refill your stamina. Gives a little more danger as if you stand there casting 3 songs and the mob doesn’t die you also cannot run. So it’s a little more fair. You can’t just stand casting over and over then just run away to med. But using mana does give a use the already having 65 med.

Tough call but I’m excited for the changes

[aldath c'om]

if you are using mages ability to cast a 8th circle spell as a line u want to put bard on u should consider then either making area of effect smaller on bard or making mages area higher. when u try some bards aoe song vs earthquake u know the mages area of effect is way smaller.

[Edward Sinclair]

The mana is a good idea because bard already has med

This would require the bard to undress... Can of worms coming right up!

[GM Oden]

As for bards vs mage aoe, Ya I agree. I plan on working on the mage spells as well so I'll tack that consideration onto the list.

As for disrobing to Mrs as a bard, would you? It's been awhile since I've had a bard but in bone armor with 65 med, I don't recall having to disrobe. I'll test it tonight and see what I discover, there's always working around small niggling things such as this. I've just been asked by a few people to pull aoe damage and buffing from hitting unintended targets.

If something like this were to happen there needs to be a draw back, it's easy to put in but we need the draw back in the form of a resource being used. And to cut it off at the pass I plan on doing the party based stuff for all aoe spells and what not.

[Ivan]

Yes bard has to .undress to meditate, but depending on the manacost you can just use gmanaregen.

What comes to mage vs bard and what not, that is completely pointless argument due to the fact that mages are far too squishy to take the aggro or tank the monsters in any of the situations so using earthquake and whatnot is going to be akward anyways and not recommended. Giving bards non-ally hurting songs would in a sense be nice buff, but in the end does one of the more balanced classes on the shard need a buff is completely different subject.

Bard as a class has the most tools out of any of the classes as it is already.

[Glarundis]

As a solo player, yes. Many things are used in solo, and considering they are, this would be a complete nerf for solo hunting, since we waste mana for nothing in return. A single bard doing 3 demo songs before meditating in the middle of pvm isn't gonna be a game changer either, everyone else does the damage faster anyways..
I just wonder how this plays with more bards at the same time

[Zendrick]

My thoughts on the AoE balance between mages and bards is that bards have to stand still for up to 8 seconds to get through a song. giving the opportunity for the enemy to get in close and do damage.

The mage can cast, run in and use the spell. run out, cast, run in use the spell so the AoE isn't necessarily on an even field to being with as far as the radius each one requires.

[GM Oden]

Well I'm going to script in mana usage with an easy way to toggle it on and off.

Personally, I believe that the bard class is in the wrong base class and if I could I'd push it into fighter, drop Magery from them and give them either additional songs to make up for what is essentially recall and a few other spells. I don't like the fact that they get some Magery and every other magic user gets GM magery. But I digress, I will script in mana usage and we'll get testing done, I plan on moving more information about songs and their type to the fore. This will move some instrument types around slightly but it'll be a lot simpler to figure out which instrument might be best for the different songs.

I'm expecting to get some negative feedback on this but my aim is to bring long known "secrets" to the fore.

I also want to add wood types to actually make a difference as opposed to how it is now, where only a single wood type appears to make a difference and add wood types to the magic instrument creation function. I need to look into that bit there might already be a way to transfer wood types to magical instruments but I don't think so.

I only ask for those people I grab for testing to keep an open mind, I know how it may look that putting mana or some other tax on songs is a huge nerf but I don't think it will be it just puts the bard class more firmly into the caster base class but the gain I think will be much more useful for bards, you may have to actually buy mana regeneration pots, you may actually have to build camping but in the end I think it's for the best. Mana costs will need to be adjusted no doubt to balance them out but it's something we can work out.