Bard nerf feedback

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-XXX-
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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by -XXX- » Mon Nov 28, 2022 7:20 pm

Sl1pp1f1st wrote:
Mon Nov 28, 2022 6:09 pm
We do however have a thread on sailing going on five pages complaining that the sea is not inclusive and this update will make it worse.
Which option would make sailing more inclusive?
a) forcing everybody to rely on bard song bonus to pass ridiculously high sail DCs
b) axing sea shanties and lowering the sail DCs
:thinking:

But TBH I don't see how this change negatively impacts sailing: characters who are serious about sailing are going to have full sailing ranks available at their lvl, so they'll still get the full bard song bonus.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Sincra » Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:12 am

Sl1pp1f1st wrote:
Mon Nov 28, 2022 6:09 pm
OK, here's my feedback and experiences with neo-neo-Arelith bard. My perspective is that of a skillbard and as such skills is mostly what I will be discussing. I also fell for the meme that 25 base charisma would be enough of a sacrifice on a class that needs 16, so I was greeted by my favourite time waster - yet another forced relevel.
I actually specifically targetted only characters with the feats that changed so while you consider it a time waster it was only necessary to not break things.
Chests
Pilfering Poem used to give 19, I now get 6. I have played this game for way too many years and the novelty of this little mini-game of finding trap, disabling trap, opening lock has long since worn off. Bard has since NWN's inception been one of the few classes blissfully fortunate enough to be able to more or less ignore it with minimal investment and now it has to contend with having another half page of gear to mitigate the damage while still somehow only having six pages of inventory. Arguing that it is unrealistic was, is and will always be a dumb argument in a fantasy game. I challenge you to break into a museum, attempt to don a suit of full plate armour in an instant and afterwards sprint around in it. Are you going to make full plate wearers take ten minutes to armour up and move at 50% reduced movement speed? I think not. Claiming that this advantage is unfair to other classes is also a moot point when 95% of arcane familiars picked on the server do the same thing. The end result is I will still get through to the treasure, only I will have wasted yet more time on yet more inventory management and gear swapping, so this change succeeds only in ruining a quality of life feature that bard has always had.
You should invest more skill points, you're looking at this from the wrong perspective.
How does a song give you inspiration to be as good as a master when you have no knowledge of master level capabilities?
Sailing
Sea Shanty, in my case, went from a bonus of +22 Sail to +17. I'm cool with it. We do however have a thread on sailing going on five pages complaining that the sea is not inclusive and this update will make it worse. This update is more than likely extreme enough to make a good number of bards shelve or quit, making the bard requisite for doing edgewater sailing even rarer and further locking away this content for a good number of players. The difficulty of sailing and fighting in the edgewaters remain the same.
I'd argue this is a failure of sailing not having reasonable soft caps as requirements.
Climb
Traveler's Tune used to give +27 Climb, I now get +6. The sail thread suggests it is bad to lock away content behind an arbitrary skill and the same applies to this. I used to be able to handle even the most difficult climbs whereas now I can only access the easy/mid tier spots by getting gear, managing my scarce pages of six inventory, swap gear and - once again - waste my time on a quality of life feature bard has had since climb was introduced. Not only on the bard's part, but bard was the sole option for a lot of characters who are completely inept at climbing to participate in this content and now they can only dream of it. I, being stupid, also failed to make my character an air genasi because I didn't have the good foresight to predict my skill would be slashed by 78% from one day to the next. On a side note, if I want to do any wyvern riding content I can also eat **** and cry about it, because I went from a bonus of +32 to a bonus of +6.
Same as chests, you need to invest more to know the techniques a song would speak of.
Listen
Svrtr wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 2:12 am
This also especially allowing for 90 listen bards and/or solo QB bards.
Sure, I don't know what possessed them to make Amplify turns/level either. My listen can still get pretty high with rounds/level stuff and I'm fine with that. Sentinel's Song sure looks silly however, going from +22 to a healthy +0. I can instead give the middle finger to every character around me and opt for the most boring song in the book, Selfish Solo, and get +6, here's me playing the support class.

Stealth
Deceptive Ditty went from +22 to +17 Hide, +0 Move Silently and also looks silly. My stealth game was probably in the top 10-5% of the server, now it is downgraded to viable for PvM only, locking me away from additional content. Arguing that it is unrealistic to sing and move silently remains a dumb argument in a fantasy game. I encourage you to get an oxygen tank and dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and not die from decompression sickness. Are you going to instantly Fugue anyone stepping out of a diving bell? I think not. I play a sneak, so this is the equivalent of cutting all melee classes' disc or all caster classes' spellcraft and concentration by 22 and bard with their lead foot is no longer cool enough to hang out with with their shady friends. Having gutted my Dexterity for Charisma and very few spells granting Move Silently there is also no way to recuperate this loss.
Not sure if you've ever tried to sing and listen/move quietly before, it's pretty hard going on impossible without advanced training.
This is under consideration on additional changes.
Jack of no trades
If you look up bard in more or less any fantasy lore setting you will find the phrase "Jack-of-all-trades" or some variation thereof. All of the above combines to make this abomination of a bard a Jack of no (some) trades and is a hollowing out of their class identity which has persisted since 2002. What you have succeeded in removing is for the most part also simple QoL features like dealing with chests and doing climbing spots rather than features making them percievably imbalanced in PvP, making the class more of a drag to play, unfun and indeed, a waste of time. Skillbloat is mentioned, well skills is the sole reason many pick this class in the first place and the bard gets neither powerful spells, summons or combat proficiency as the tradeoff.
Literally can invest in all skills, you're also missing the second part to Jack of all trades.
“a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”
This is absolutely not what it was before this change, it was out competing nearly every skill dedicated class.
PvM
Who cares. Hardcore Arelith with low level stuff like kuo toa priests with two casts of Acid Sheathe is long dead and levelling is easier than it has ever been. I guess I get minus two AC due to no Armor Skin. I do miss being able to get rid of the writ paper to free up my inventory though.
The writ paper is on the agenda to fix but needs system design changes.

Rushed & Unfinished
Half the songs now do nothing making this update feel like a rushed, half thought out, half finished, halving of a class unworthy of PGCC testing, much less live server implementation. Sentinel's Song gives 0 Listen, Deceptive Ditty gives 0 Move Silently, Masking Melody now recieves no ESF Perform bonus, this looks good to you? Would it perhaps be wise to address some of these issues before nuking a class from one day to the next? Is there a particular reason this had to be shipped out so suddenly after SoTH bard seemingly being fine for eight months?
TL:DR
Aniel wrote:
Wed Mar 23, 2022 3:40 am

From sorrowkitten, Red Ropes, Aniel, et al
With contributions from KenC
===========
BARD UPDATE
Bard has had a lot of work done to it to make it a more versatile, enjoyable and user-friendly class to play. Many bugs were fixed and new features have been added.
This, out the window
All QoL features removed, time wasted
Content locked for both bard and friends
Bard unviable for high end stealth
Sea worse
2/10, cannot recommend
This change has been in the works for months and is actually about half of what could have been done.

I am only responding to this as you made some points I'm seeing repeated and want that curtailed.
I appreciate feedback but you really should try to avoid being emotive when giving it, this isn't a political race.
Irongron wrote:I've literally never used -guard on anyone.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Scurvy Cur » Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:42 am

I'm genuinely disappointed in this update.


















It didn't go far enough. I think bard probably also needs to lose aid, lesser mind blank, freedom of movement, and rogue's cunning, and probably the point of AB at 30.


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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by AstralUniverse » Tue Nov 29, 2022 6:42 am

Scurvy Cur wrote:
Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:42 am
It didn't go far enough. I think bard probably also needs to lose aid, lesser mind blank, freedom of movement, and rogue's cunning, and probably the point of AB at 30.
Agreed about the spells. Disagree about the ab because afaik there's no ab on 30. it's on 28, it serves melee mundane bards too, and it should stay imo.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by -XXX- » Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:01 pm

Bard song should be imposing a penalty on hide/ms/listen instead of buffing them.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Morgy » Tue Nov 29, 2022 7:54 pm

-XXX- wrote:
Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:01 pm
Bard song should be imposing a penalty on hide/ms/listen instead of buffing them.
Following the logic I think you are suggesting, bright shiny wards should place a penalty on hide, too. Stoneskin could reduce tumble or speed… A lot of logic doesn’t apply to this game, so we must suspend it in part and focus on balance.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Lost in the dark » Tue Nov 29, 2022 9:44 pm

I have a Cha bard and would firstly say its a fun class and great having full access to all skills. And the general Arelith changes are very good. It's also still incredibly pokey with company and is very much a game changer. Whilst I agree the nerf to skills was required it feels its gone a bit far. With 21 bard levels that's only +3 to skills on the base song, which just feels a bit weak. So perhaps a couple of points back for commitment - maybe 1 at 15 and another at 25?

The spell selection is also good, but without friends the bards damage output is so lack luster that I would say level appropriate content is generally not fun to outright not possible. With all the spells a fully loaded bard can get to acceptable AB, but even then damage is so poor that solo play is a challenge. And sadly friends are not always available!

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by AstralUniverse » Tue Nov 29, 2022 9:49 pm

Cha bards are harder to level because you're a bad summoner early on and only when you get greater planar binding and sing to it, is when you start soloing about as easily as other none bard summoners. It gets a bit harder again in late epics because the gpb + bard song is not enough for late game content but by this point the bard should be rich and accumulate allies.

That's not to say bard is a hard class to level in general. Some bard builds have the easiest leveling experience in Arelith as is.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by -XXX- » Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:26 pm

Morgy wrote:
Tue Nov 29, 2022 7:54 pm
-XXX- wrote:
Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:01 pm
Bard song should be imposing a penalty on hide/ms/listen instead of buffing them.
Following the logic I think you are suggesting, bright shiny wards should place a penalty on hide, too. Stoneskin could reduce tumble or speed…
Yes, let's do that too!

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Hazard » Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:30 am

-XXX- wrote:
Tue Nov 29, 2022 10:26 pm
Morgy wrote:
Tue Nov 29, 2022 7:54 pm
-XXX- wrote:
Tue Nov 29, 2022 4:01 pm
Bard song should be imposing a penalty on hide/ms/listen instead of buffing them.
Following the logic I think you are suggesting, bright shiny wards should place a penalty on hide, too. Stoneskin could reduce tumble or speed…
Yes, let's do that too!
Sounds good to me.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Bees in Space » Thu Dec 01, 2022 4:57 pm

Sincra wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 3:21 pm
There's reportedly DC 100 climbs now, not sure how extra is not needed for these.
i'm sorry what

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by False Nibble » Fri Dec 02, 2022 7:01 pm

What stuck out to me the most about these class changes was the way an 'overpowered' class combination (SoTH EDR Bard variants) was addressed.

Essentially every SoTH Bard lost 2 epic feats, regardless of being an EDR Build or not. I would think there could be a better way to address this, considering SoTH was expensive in its stat investment and feat requirements already.

I don't currently play a Bard but I can understand that taking away two epic feats out of a build can be quite painful.

For example, assuming a pre-nerf Bard had taken Epic Skill Focus Discipline, Lore and Sail:

If they give up ESF Disc, they become prone to Knockdown and similar discipline check attacks.

If they give up ESF Lore, they can no longer use level 9 scrolls.

If they give up ESF Sail, they can no longer reach 100 Sail (This can drop ship AB and AC by 2 for some crews).

This alone can cause quite some disappointment to some players, before considering the gear investment some may have made, that may now be useless.

For example, assuming a DEX Based SoTH Bard had made a full set of hard 5% gear like DEX/CON/Unisave/Discipline/Spellcraft/Listen/Lore/Sail. After the nerf, despite having invested all the time, effort and gold to make this, they will be prone to discipline attacks and/or unable to use level 9 scrolls anymore and/or unable to reach 100 sail.

As it is now, by design, every SoTH Bard can only be a 'master' of one skill. I don't know if this design is a byproduct of trying to make EDR 3 Bards impossible, but I wouldn't consider a Bard having 3 Epic Skill Focus feats while also having SoTH to be game breaking.

Perhaps there are some other feats that could be taken that make the Bard too powerful? I guess the other choices can be Armor Skin, Epic Weapon Focus, Epic Prowess, none of which seem game breaking considering the high stat requirement of SoTH.

Instead of making every SoTH Bard suffer in order to disable EDR Bard variants, a script akin to the one in place for Warpriest could be used. That script makes sure that if you are a Warpriest, you will not take any Epic Spells. If you take one on level up, you are automatically relevelled.

The same thing could be implemented for Bards, so that if both EDR feats and SoTH is present, you are automatically relevelled with an informative message that you cannot have both.

That is, if the way this was handled isn't intended to begin with.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Svrtr » Fri Dec 02, 2022 7:12 pm

False Nibble wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 7:01 pm
What stuck out to me the most about these class changes was the way an 'overpowered' class combination (SoTH EDR Bard variants) was addressed.

Essentially every SoTH Bard lost 2 epic feats, regardless of being an EDR Build or not. I would think there could be a better way to address this, considering SoTH was expensive in its stat investment and feat requirements already.

I don't currently play a Bard but I can understand that taking away two epic feats out of a build can be quite painful.

For example, assuming a pre-nerf Bard had taken Epic Skill Focus Discipline, Lore and Sail:

If they give up ESF Disc, they become prone to Knockdown and similar discipline check attacks.

If they give up ESF Lore, they can no longer use level 9 scrolls.

If they give up ESF Sail, they can no longer reach 100 Sail (This can drop ship AB and AC by 2 for some crews).

This alone can cause quite some disappointment to some players, before considering the gear investment some may have made, that may now be useless.

For example, assuming a DEX Based SoTH Bard had made a full set of hard 5% gear like DEX/CON/Unisave/Discipline/Spellcraft/Listen/Lore/Sail. After the nerf, despite having invested all the time, effort and gold to make this, they will be prone to discipline attacks and/or unable to use level 9 scrolls anymore and/or unable to reach 100 sail.

As it is now, by design, every SoTH Bard can only be a 'master' of one skill. I don't know if this design is a byproduct of trying to make EDR 3 Bards impossible, but I wouldn't consider a Bard having 3 Epic Skill Focus feats while also having SoTH to be game breaking.

Perhaps there are some other feats that could be taken that make the Bard too powerful? I guess the other choices can be Armor Skin, Epic Weapon Focus, Epic Prowess, none of which seem game breaking considering the high stat requirement of SoTH.

Instead of making every SoTH Bard suffer in order to disable EDR Bard variants, a script akin to the one in place for Warpriest could be used. That script makes sure that if you are a Warpriest, you will not take any Epic Spells. If you take one on level up, you are automatically relevelled.

The same thing could be implemented for Bards, so that if both EDR feats and SoTH is present, you are automatically relevelled with an informative message that you cannot have both.

That is, if the way this was handled isn't intended to begin with.
Again, as has been said by Sincra, it was believed that EDR SotH bard was a problem but not the reason for this nerf. The other reason was that bard song had caused immense skill bloat, with 100 sail high disc 9th level lore casting bard being a part of the problem.

So the skill bloat nerf is by design and not focused just at EDR SotH bard. They were a part of the problem, the other problem was the skill bloat.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by False Nibble » Fri Dec 02, 2022 8:14 pm

Svrtr wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 7:12 pm
Again, as has been said by Sincra, it was believed that EDR SotH bard was a problem but not the reason for this nerf. The other reason was that bard song had caused immense skill bloat, with 100 sail high disc 9th level lore casting bard being a part of the problem.

So the skill bloat nerf is by design and not focused just at EDR SotH bard. They were a part of the problem, the other problem was the skill bloat.
First of all, my post only addresses the change to the requirements of SoTH. Nothing is mentioned about the nerfs to the Bard Song.

'Skill Bloat' is a term scarcely used in this thread, mostly by yourself, with vague meaning.

To my understanding, the issue was that a Bard could boost the skills of all characters around him, while they had minimal investment. This is addressed already, as was said by Sincra.
Sincra wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 3:30 am
On skills, it was oppressive how mandatory bard had become as a catchall improver. This is especially true of people investing 1 point out of a possible 33 and getting bumped by 17 to 23 points in the skill.
This then exasperated the issue of how easy it is to reach the soft 50 cap for the uninvested.
You take it a step further and claim that a Bard with 100 Sail and decent Discipline and Lore is also a problem. Please, point out where it is mentioned that a Bard with 3 Epic Skill Focuses is a problem, in case I missed it.

All I can see in regard to the change towards the feat requirements of SoTH are the following.
Sincra wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 3:56 pm
SoTH is intended as an expensive capstone as it actually effectively bypasses the upper limit of Bard song, this unfortunately has to come at a price and before this was a price of feat you'd likely take anyway and a stat that didn't stop EDR 3/EDR 2 and Armor skin on top.

I've personally seen how frustrating an EDR 3 Bard is to deal with, so having all that and being incredibly hard to take down, it was a bit much, that's why we made the choice Super support and squishy vs Good support and tanky.
Sincra wrote:
Sat Nov 26, 2022 3:30 am
To clarify the reason for the update:
Bard with both SotH 3 and EDR was too much, this is just a fact of how strong 9/- is when you're also providing an effective level X song with a universal +1 to base song effects.
This is the tankiness concern that was addressed in conjunction with the SotH being made more expensive. It is now impossible to buy everything you want in feats for this setup and have a level 30 song.
All that is mentioned is how powerful EDR Bard is, and by increasing the feat requirements we have essentially disabled them.

In my mind, there are better ways to achieve this, except if eating up 2 epic feats off every non-EDR Bard was desirable too.

It is unclear to me whether it was or not.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by AstralUniverse » Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:02 pm

Song of the heart was too cheap. skills were too high. It's really not that hard to grasp after several pages of discussion over it.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by False Nibble » Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:48 pm

AstralUniverse wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:02 pm
Song of the heart was too cheap. skills were too high. It's really not that hard to grasp after several pages of discussion over it.
Yeah, so the question is:

Was it too cheap solely because it allowed SoTH EDR 3 Bards to exist? Then it could be implemented in a better way so non-EDR SoTH builds don't have to lose 2 feats too.

Or,

Was it too cheap in general? Then nothing needs to be changed.

Something for the devs to consider.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by Svrtr » Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:57 pm

False Nibble wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:48 pm
AstralUniverse wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:02 pm
Song of the heart was too cheap. skills were too high. It's really not that hard to grasp after several pages of discussion over it.
Yeah, so the question is:

Was it too cheap solely because it allowed SoTH EDR 3 Bards to exist? Then it could be implemented in a better way so non-EDR SoTH builds don't have to lose 2 feats too.

Or,

Was it too cheap in general? Then nothing needs to be changed.

Something for the devs to consider.
As was said by Sincra, EDR SotH was a symptom of the problem. The feat itself for how immensely powerful it was along with the relative gain of the feats it required (such as auto-extend ALL bard spells) gave a lot. That combined with bards giving about 14-22 bonuses to skills (22 being the high end, 14 being the average depending on song) meant that people were getting massive bonuses to skills with little to no investment.

This is what is meant by skill bluff. Bards giving these massive skill bonuses of 10 from song or more before even factoring SotH or unique songs to skills you may have 0 ranks in and getting massive massive numbers for minimal investment. This is why the % scaling bonus of a skill and the 1 per 3 to 1 per 6 change was implemented.

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by CHBanger » Fri Dec 02, 2022 11:14 pm

Sounds like the Bard skill bonus shouldn't be a flat additional value but a percentage boost based on the number of base points spent in a given skill.

This would eliminate huge buffs for low or no skill investment and a better boost to those that are invested.

Apart from this update and having gone through numerous relevels now with my Bard all I can say is I loathe the random songs at 10, 20, 30. Every time I relevel I get new songs. Thankfully my luck has been so abysmal I've not lost anything I consider good. And after this last relevel my track record holds. :D

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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by AstralUniverse » Fri Dec 02, 2022 11:35 pm

False Nibble wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 9:48 pm
Was it too cheap in general? Then nothing needs to be changed.
If it was *too* cheap in general, then something needed to be changed, right? the word "too" is the keyword here. This discussion is weird.
Svrtr wrote:

I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too


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Re: Bard nerf feedback

Post by False Nibble » Sat Dec 03, 2022 12:39 am

AstralUniverse wrote:
Fri Dec 02, 2022 11:35 pm
If it was *too* cheap in general, then something needed to be changed, right? the word "too" is the keyword here. This discussion is weird.
I just hope if a dev happens to actually read my feedback, they won't be weirded out and miss the point behind a strange keyword, too.

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