Feedback: Bard PGCC Changes

[DangerDolphin]

viewtopic.php?f=23&p=250453#p250453

[AstralUniverse]

Will bard song still grant uses per lvl when resting?

[Drowboy]

It gives them back entirely.

That electro damage one is funny.
I have little opinion on the mechanical side, mostly because I'm in the camp that thinks the songs needed a nerf anyway. The solo song seems cool.

Any hints on what the other songs are? Methods of acquisition? Ability to teach songs to other bards?

[Dr. B]

"A cappella" is two words.

[DangerDolphin]

Any hints on what the other songs are? Methods of acquisition? Ability to teach songs to other bards?

We are still discussing this internally, it will be some combination of exploration and character background, with possibly bards teaching songs to other bards in there.

[AstralUniverse]

possibly bards teaching songs to other bards

This sounds dope!

It could be that bards only select 1-2 songs over their leveling and the rest needs to be learned (with a bard lvl based cap on how many songs can be learned same as int with languages).

[Dreams]

Does bard song need perform? Has that been changed? How much perform is needed for what level breaks of bard song?

Bardsongs don't seem to currently stack with one another on PGCC, they are replacing the previous one. Shouldn't these stack?

Cursesongs don't stack or replace, they are ineffective if someone has been cursesonged already. At the very least these should replace the base curse. Ideally they would then stack the unique properties per song.

[AstralUniverse]

Does bard song need perform? Has that been changed? How much perform is needed for what level breaks of bard song?

All songs require 2 * bard level, +2 per epic bard level in Perform to receive full benefits. This means the most Perform you will need for bard songs is 80.

[Haroshia]

What was the goal of these changes? What was meriting these nerfs? Are there specific builds you felt were too strong or too over-represented? Knowing this would help with constructing feedback.

[A MAN DRUNK ON POWER]

I think adjusting the scale of the base song slightly so that bards with less than 25, or especially less than 20, levels, don't just get completely obliterated by this.

[The Hazards of Love]

I see where you guys are going with this, however...

Most of these songs seem pretty boring for what Bard is losing. I don't mind the buffs/debuffs becoming more minor, bard song has needed adjustment for a while now. The songs that are there now need stronger themes that are more synergistic with builds that are likely to actually exist. There's a whole bunch you can draw from: there are a bunch of bardic colleges in D&D, each of which might have their own song, there are a handful of famous bards, gods which patron bards, etc. The reason bards are the way they are in D&D is because throughout history and folklore bards were thought of as magical figures because of their importance in preserving songs/tales in cultures in which literacy was low and for their ability to entertain in times when entertainment was very scarce. The bard class should have some serious flavorful punch to them if you're going down this route.

I'm interested in what you guys are doing, but it just needs.. more. As it is, I would rather bard song just get a bit of a nerf.

[DangerDolphin]

What was the goal of these changes? What was meriting these nerfs? Are there specific builds you felt were too strong or too over-represented? Knowing this would help with constructing feedback.

The goal was a small bard song nerf, but we wanted to compensate with utility and soft power in return. Much of this is packed into the songs that I can't actually post up here, but I can tell you that ESF: Perform bonuses range from water breathing to revealing planar portals. We also have a feature in the works that lets you use your contacts in a city to locate other characters (provided they are not hidden through numerous means)

I think adjusting the scale of the base song slightly so that bards with less than 25, or especially less than 20, levels, don't just get completely obliterated by this.

These builds typically rely on the NWN vanilla song scaling that jumps up 5 AC in 6 levels, and we just weren't going to carry that across. They are also pretty unintuitive, given they rely on you being an 11 CHA bard that never casts, or becomes dispel bait.

Most of these songs seem pretty boring for what Bard is losing.

Bare in mind the ones we released to PGCC were the PvP optimal ones, the fun niche songs will appear in game. There are around 13 more bard songs and a handful of curse songs like this.

[A MAN DRUNK ON POWER]

I think it's bad philosophy to say that because a build is unintuitive it has to be squashed. I hear people talk a lot on Discord about broken 26/4 bard/divine builds but those were, literally, only made stronger with this update - they can use Accapela Aria to gain +6 AC, +2 AB, +4 damage, +3 uni saves, +8 skills, +3 regen, 10% movement speed, and if they decide to get ESF: Perform somehow they also get +7 search (on top of the default +8 to all skills). That's better in most ways that matter, than vanilla bard song, on the build that was regarded as the best, most broken bard build, BEFORE these changes. If they want to buff their PARTY on the other hand, they can choose songs to give them extra discipline and ultravision and spot, or one less AC/damage and no regen/movement speed increase and 1 less uni saves with Falataer's Fiddle (which is /very slightly/ worse than vanilla bard song).

The brokenness of the actual broken bards was exacerbated for the most part, and bard builds that were not broken were made mediocre, except /maybe/ for 20/10 builds with Vanguard path that already were built to be complete buff/debuff machines, because PDK wasn't nerfed.

And niche builds or non-vanguard 20/10 builds that weren't doing anything wrong were told between the lines with this nerf to stop existing.

That doesn't seem good or helpful to anybody. Well, except 26/4 bard builds, who are literally only stronger now.

[Haroshia]

The goal was a bard song nerf, but we wanted to compensate with utility and soft power in return. Much of this is packed into the songs that I can't actually post up here, but I can tell you that ESF: Perform bonuses range from water breathing to revealing planar portals. We also have a feature in the works that lets you use your contacts in a city to locate other characters (provided they are not hidden through numerous means)

This is very cool sounding, and I like it. I'm a bit concerned about it being obfuscated though. Do caster classes have hidden spells in Arelith that they don't know about and have to FOIG? Will all the possible songs eventually be listed?

These builds typically rely on the NWN vanilla song scaling that jumps up 5 AC in 6 levels, and we just weren't going to carry that across. They are also pretty unintuitive, given they rely on you being an 11 CHA bard that never casts, or becomes dispel bait.

I always saw the structure of Bard being a class that you could take 30 levels in and be a true jack of all trades, or you could multi-class if you wanted to give up some of their abilities to be more specialized. Was there a goal to remove non-casting (or light casting) bards? It seems like the vision with a lot of these changes is that all bards SHOULD be casters to an extent. Am I understanding that correctly?

[DangerDolphin]

This is very cool sounding, and I like it. I'm a bit concerned about it being obfuscated though. Do caster classes have hidden spells in Arelith that they don't know about and have to FOIG? Will all the possible songs eventually be listed?

I am hoping that once they become common knowledge we can put them up on the wiki. I think there will be a point after several months where all the established players will have a very good idea of what these songs do, and only the casual and new players will not and hence be at a disadvantage. On release however, everyone will be on an equally rocky footing. This did mean I had to sacrifice the PGCC testing of those extra songs, but they are far less important in PvP.

I always saw the structure of Bard being a class that you could take 30 levels in and be a true jack of all trades, or you could multi-class if you wanted to give up some of their abilities to be more specialized. Was there a goal to remove non-casting (or light casting) bards? It seems like the vision with a lot of these changes is that all bards SHOULD be casters to an extent. Am I understanding that correctly?

As I mentioned above, I think taking a partial-caster class and not casting with it is a bit odd. We didn't intentionally try to kill those builds though, they were just collateral damage. I'm hoping to include a rebuild for all bards, but especially for those with less than 20 levels (And more than 4!)

On Arelith, the 30 bard will always be the prime support bard with the optimal song buffs, but along the way they will have sacrificed various weapon proficiencies, saving throw bonuses, BAB and even APR.

I don't think "caster bards" are really a thing, as anything they can do, Warlocks and full spellcasters can do better.

[strong yeet]

Do not!!!!!!! add a disable trap/open lock song. Thanks.

Also I think it's a really, really awful idea (and one that favours developers & their friends, if I'm to be frank and a little mean) to gate certain class mechanics behind FOIG, even if they are "less important." Nobody liked it very much when Mithreas did it; here I thought we were a few years past that by now...

[Zavandar]

20/10 bard/pdk, 16/10/4 bard/pdk/paladin, and 17/7/6 bard/wm/fighter (though i guess it'd be 15/7/8 with the scaling changes) weren't great builds to begin with and making their songs worse just kills them.

26/4 is better than all of those builds and it was hurt the least.

i don't think changing the scaling to be more accommodating of sub-25 bard builds will affect the overall meta at all. they'll still be worse, but not outright dead.

as it is, even casting on a 26/4 is risky. vs someone with esf: abj, they have a 50% chance to be dispelled if they cast, vs a 30% chance to be dispelled if they don't. given their kit, and how most of it is wandable, they're basically trading an extra 20% chance to be dispelled for saving on umd, good hope, and war cry. worth it? i'll let you decide.

[Itikar]

I will be short as I do not have much time, but overall it seems to me a good change, and the nerf is not very appreciable. Yes, nerf are never nice, but as a player of a bard, I find the current setup interesting and not particularly punishing. I say this as a bard 21 with lasting inspiration and esf perform, I understand that the builds with less than that may have issues, or without the epic skill focus may have issues.

I also praise making lingering song finally a (relatively) worthwhile feat, instead of a completely useless one. And at the same time I praise that bards without it will still be able to be decent. This is good design. Ditto for extra music and skill focus perform, really, which now have a sense for who wants to change or refresh songs often. Or, that can be nice, precisely, for the <20 bard builds without lasting inspiration.

The part I like the most of this update, however, is the introduction of many different songs, and curse songs, which I felt was something really needed to give more depth and dynamic to the class. Spells provided this to an extent, but only very few were really specific of the bard class.

[garrbear758]

Do not!!!!!!! add a disable trap/open lock song. Thanks.

Also I think it's a really, really awful idea (and one that favours developers & their friends, if I'm to be frank and a little mean) to gate certain class mechanics behind FOIG, even if they are "less important." Nobody liked it very much when Mithreas did it; here I thought we were a few years past that by now...

If the devs wanted an unfair advantage, I promise you we would be smarter and subtler about it than what you suggested. We are hiding non-pvp situational songs initially to make it more exciting for players to find them, not to gain any so called advantage.

If you suspect anyone on the staff of doing anything for an unfair advantage, report it to the admins and I promise you it will be dealt with swiftly.

[Haroshia]

20/10 bard/pdk, 16/10/4 bard/pdk/paladin, and 17/7/6 bard/wm/fighter (though i guess it'd be 15/7/8 with the scaling changes) weren't great builds to begin with and making their songs worse just kills them.

26/4 is better than all of those builds and it was hurt the least.

i don't think changing the scaling to be more accommodating of sub-25 bard builds will affect the overall meta at all. they'll still be worse, but not outright dead.

as it is, even casting on a 26/4 is risky. vs someone with esf: abj, they have a 50% chance to be dispelled if they cast, vs a 30% chance to be dispelled if they don't. given their kit, and how most of it is wandable, they're basically trading an extra 20% chance to be dispelled for saving on umd, good hope, and war cry. worth it? i'll let you decide.

I think this is also why a lot of bard builds just don't cast a ton anyways. That's why the change confuses me. Bards don't get the metamagic feats/focuses necessary to make their spells reliable, so most people just don't bother. Instead they focus on songs and multiclassing to be at least good at SOMETHING. I see very few bards, and the ones I do see don't seem to be casting that often anyways besides zoo buffs or mass haste spamming if somebody isn't around to extend it. It's because you're objectively better off using a wand to do it because of how dispel works.

[CorsicanDoge]

So I played a div bard and I can understand why people would want to change them. They were really sexy when you finally get them geared, leveled, and got the perform just right for your bard level but that's the only time people cared about them in any situation. The rest of the way for a bard is fairly masochistic and they do not have much solo capability ever.

I can make peace with the idea of the songs being more complex and I could appreciate the RP potential of being an apprentice to another bard to learn new songs but I'd ask for you to consider the following:

Whether by feat or by innately, the ability to cast in full armor so they can use their spells fairly easily. In PnP it was just medium armor, granted, but in the context of this server I do not think it'd be a death knell of balance if they can work in full plate.

The still spell as it is would probably not be taken and people would still strip naked and out of their tower shield and just buff from certain spells. Str bards use full plate/templar's half-plate, dex bards use clothes.

Bonus feats pre-epics

Or just general quality of life things for the class in general. They're a jack-of-all so they should have some cute candies and bonus feats pre-epic alone would make grabbing teleport or something less painful.

We didn't see terribly many bards in the first place even with our original song just because it was expensive, hard to level, and you were still slightly less average fighting-wise. You had a definite place in groups because of our unique buffs but if it weren't for that people would much prefer a barbarian, a wizard, or even a skill monkey. They could be strong but it was an investment and you'd invest millions in your equipment to make it just right.

[Preytoria]

The bard changes? Well -- I need to see more songs first! But so far I can understand most of the changes. I think this definitely hurts 26/4 div bard the least -- which was already a strong bard build. After that? I would give my vote to 20/10 Bard PDK. There's a lot of quirks I've discovered so far that I'll share.

1) You can ramp up your singing. Bard song gives +perform and has perform requirements. Therefore, you can actually sing to boost yourself up to the next 'tier' of bard bonuses. You can keep doing this -- I don't know what the 'sweet spot' number is, but on testing I was able to ramp up two levels higher than what my actual perform skill allowed for by just repeatedly singing.

2) Curse song can't be reapplied. Yeah, I kinda wanted to spam the thunder song I admit. But it seems that once you land a curse song you are stuck with those penalties you applied. You can't overwrite it like you can bard song. Which I guess I can understand why.

3) No more temporary hit points. I am surprised no one has brought this up yet. But the new bard song does not grant any additional HP which is very awful for the already low hp class.

4) You can play a capella and another song at the same time. Because of how bard song works -- you can sing for your group with a non-greedy bard song of your choice...then step away from them and sing a capella for yourself. So you can essentially play the greed song for yourself still. Admittedly the numbers are overall lower (I believe?) but you can do that still.

Really, we just need to see what more songs there are. The lore requirements being lowered was much needed. And I can agree with the ac bonuses being lowered. But it stings to see the temp hp going along with it all.

I'd love to see a song that makes it so you don't leave tracks!

[AstralUniverse]

Some posts above really nail what I've said on Discord. The idea that meme 8 cha 16 bards need to go (because make no mistake here, they werent that strong and now they are trash tier) away as a part of this rework makes a lot of sense from RP perspective maybe, but it's still sad from build diversity perspective. After server hours of toying around with builds, I think the only times I'd ever make any benefit from casting spells is with 26/4 split with divine class or fighter, and playing a none caster is just utter crap unless its 20/10 pdk which has it's own song written for it and is still a "lowest cha that I possibly can" bard build.

[Haroshia]

Some posts above really nail what I've said on Discord. The idea that meme 8 cha 16 bards need to go away as a part of this rework makes a lot of sense from RP perspective maybe, but it's still sad from build diversity perspective. After server hours of toying around with builds, I think the only times I'd ever make any benefit from casting spells is with 26/4 split with divine class or fighter, and playing a none caster is just utter crap unless its 20/10 pdk which has it's own song written for it.

Building off this, I kinda think the whole "Bard song is OP" thing is a fallacy because to get the maximum AC added to it right now you need to take 16 levels in bard and frankly, bard kinda sucks. You got crappy 3/4 BAB progression coupled with crappy d6 hit dice and crappy arcane spell casting with no bonus feats and a very limited spell list. You get decent skill points, but you're taxed on them because you need to invest in Perform to make your core class mechanic function. Then, that core mechanic is limited by your levels in a skill that you literally cannot get high enough by skill points and stats alone, and are further taxed on with magic items that add to the skill.

So you take 16 or 20 or 26 levels in bard, and with the song active you can make yourself actually on par with a class that took 0 levels in bard and instead went into a class with strong mechanical benefits. You also have the side effect of making your allies extremely strong, which is exacerbated by many builds that aren't bard already being very unbalanced.

This change basically says "Don't play bard unless you want to be a songbot". I'm not sure if that was the intent, but mechanically that is what this accomplishes.

[strong yeet]

If the devs wanted an unfair advantage, I promise you we would be smarter and subtler about it than what you suggested. We are hiding non-pvp situational songs initially to make it more exciting for players to find them, not to gain any so called advantage.

If you suspect anyone on the staff of doing anything for an unfair advantage, report it to the admins and I promise you it will be dealt with swiftly.

Okay, so by no means am I trying to make it out as The Scry Tower 2.0, but I don't see how "exploration and excitement" is any less dismissive than "FOIG." It's just a lack of documentation and transparency, which isn't good for anyone -- my point was that obfuscating these new songs, whatever and wherever they are, also goes a long way toward obfuscating their effects... plus, one person's RP cookie can be another person's six paragraph "nerf this now!" forum thread.

I just don't really want to live in a world where I feel like I can't tell some new guy about XYZ facets of his class on the server's Discord channel without getting moderated for spoilers. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself on that point?

Anyway, back on topic: bards should definitely get a re-level with this. I didn't see anything about it in the announcements, and even though it was never explicitly mentioned as a thing that isn't happening I figure it's worth a mention. Bard 2.0, as it were, hinges so hard on being 25+ levels and having ESF perform, whereas before you didn't strictly need either one to be viable.

For broad strokes I agree with Zav (big surprise there, I'm sure), namely in that with these changes build diversity has been handicapped really hard -- playing anything that isn't a 26/4 str build (or some master harper variant thereof), a 27/3 EDR build, or pure 30 is just not worthwhile at all. Anything that wasn't those 3 builds with a few fighter-dipped exceptions was pretty mediocre, at best, to begin with. Now they're not worth playing at all, completely worthless.

0 ASF or not, caster bards are still total garbage because dispel is just a really bad system, and the only ideas I've ever seen at fixing at are total jokes like "make mundane items dispel at item CL!" -- this is really something that deserves its own thread, so I'm not going to devote much time to it. I will say that it's funny bard/paladins can now cast without losing any AC or having to bother with weird quad-stat gear, thanks to a particularly egregrious set of +4 dex chainmail.

According to the player metrics thread, there were actually very few bards on the server. I can't imagine most of them were optimal builds to begin with, and I've been in just a very tiny handful of fights where I had a bard at all. So it's really odd to me that those meme-tier dex-based shadowdancer bards have just been castrated and the optimal divine bard remains basically unchanged. I don't feel like this jives at all with the stated purpose of the update.

I'm glad bard is finally getting a look at, as their buffs swung the fight pendulum way too hard, but bard was never really a problem in a vacuum now that disarm is dead. Controversially: what's a real problem, if you ask me, is additives from other classes. Hexblade. PDK. Warlock. Dwarf Defender. So many classes have AB/AC penalties and buffs now, and the update hasn't curbed that whatsoever by more than a couple points. Throw in taunt, too, and you can lower peoples' AC by almost 20 points. Smacking ye olde pure bard or 25+ bard down by 1 doesn't do anything to curb that, really... but with that, bard was never the real culprit.