Please change this feat so that a full rotation of Con Fuoco, Con Moto and Con Brio refreshes the duration. Using all three Elemental Songs in combat (to profit from the damage) is quite complex so it feels appropriate to have the feat up all the time if you're able to properly switch between songs.
Playing songs in combat is quite annoying, especially those that dish out damage. You basically stand in the middle of mobs for 2-3 seconds before your first action. At this point in endgame content trash might already be dead. More than that, it's not very dynamic for an Action MMORPG. I can see this working for a healing spec, who more reacts to situations, but a DPS wants to get into the action as fast as possible and playing songs is surprisingly lethargic.
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arazith07Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,719Arc User
Playing songs in combat is quite annoying, especially those that dish out damage. You basically stand in the middle of mobs for 2-3 seconds before your first action. At this point in endgame content trash might already be dead. More than that, it's not very dynamic for an Action MMORPG. I can see this working for a healing spec, who more reacts to situations, but a DPS wants to get into the action as fast as possible and playing songs is surprisingly lethargic.
I normally 'pre-cast' the first 5 or so notes and finish the song once I wade into the enemies, you can even autorun if pushing W while typing numbers is too much for a player to handle.
I have now played up to level 17. the perform mode and having to play the songs manually really does not play well at all in combat. why did you not use a second tool bar like the ranger melee stance?
Feedback: Having to type 8 keys on a keyboard for each song feels very clunky, complicated, and not very accessibility friendly. Not everyone has an MMO multi-button mouse to map keys and combat is fast in this game. Can’t imagine how this is all going to map out on console. If you make it too complicated nobody will want to play it once the novelty wears off.
Feedback: Having to type 8 keys on a keyboard for each song feels very clunky, complicated, and not very accessibility friendly. Not everyone has an MMO multi-button mouse to map keys and combat is fast in this game. Can’t imagine how this is all going to map out on console. If you make it too complicated nobody will want to play it once the novelty wears off.
As I've already mentioned, I'm absolutely terrible with a K&M but once I memorized the note sequences, it takes less than the average Cast time of Encounters on several other classes or me to play a Song.
On average I can input 2-3 notes per second, the first song I can now input almost instantly.
I'm at least twice as fast on a controller.
I guarantee the multitudes of people far more dexterous than me will do just fine.
Possible audio bug: Noticed it seems like some sound effects do not exist, mainly for the ranged arcane at-will you start off with at level 1. You make the animation and everything but even when your character "casts" it there is no actual sound.
Bug The lower octave notes double the octave above it (i.e. base octave). This doesn't occur with C3, C#3/Db3, or D3, but it occurs with every other note, including the accidentals (aside from F flat which doesn't play at all). This means that the majority of the sound it produces isn't even the lower octave, but instead the middle octave, which can be annoying to try and use for freeplaying songs.
Instruments do do this in real life, but not to this degree, and not for that many notes.
Feedback: Having to type 8 keys on a keyboard for each song feels very clunky, complicated, and not very accessibility friendly. Not everyone has an MMO multi-button mouse to map keys and combat is fast in this game. Can’t imagine how this is all going to map out on console. If you make it too complicated nobody will want to play it once the novelty wears off.
As I've already mentioned, I'm absolutely terrible with a K&M but once I memorized the note sequences, it takes less than the average Cast time of Encounters on several other classes or me to play a Song.
On average I can input 2-3 notes per second, the first song I can now input almost instantly.
I'm at least twice as fast on a controller.
I guarantee the multitudes of people far more dexterous than me will do just fine.
Once I mapped all the notes to the numpad I had little issues playing songs in combat.
Worth noting, I am only level 6 and only have 2 songs I can play.
I'd like to start my feedback by saying that I'm very happy to be able to test a new class after so many years of waiting, and that the things I'm going to talk about here aren't just words thrown around to complain.
Feedback 1 General Mechanics: The proposal behind the performance bar is interesting but not instinctive for Neverwinter's style of play, you can see that the people who worked on this idea had good intentions, but I'm afraid they don't play the game. This system works great in some kind of tab target game, but in action combat it works more as a brake on combat dynamics. The problem here is not in memorizing the note patterns of each song but in playing it, during my gameplay at level 20 I used manual mode a few times, but it's really disheartening, in an end game TOMM ZCM and VoS gameplay I see this being an even bigger problem. I spent all the leveling waiting for more slots for auto mode, but I was frustrated to realize that as a songblade I only have 1 single slot for 6 songs and as minstrel I only have 2 for 8 songs, at that point I realized how complicated all this would be. Don't get me wrong, I like a more complex gameplay, but the way this is being developed and it doesn't suit neverwinter's style it forces you to play in a specific way, and I honestly am tired of this plastered style of play.
Bug 1 About the bugs I think all the ones I noticed were mentioned before by our fellow gamers. Stuck movement (expected to be just a test), some effects that don't work well, time to switch from encounter mode to slow performance mode, etc.
Suggestion 1 I know that hardly anything like that would happen, I'll try anyway.
1- Eliminate this manual performance system, just leave it to play outside of combat for RPG. For combat let us use quick play with the Q, E, R, 1, 2, 3 slots. That would be much more comfortable for neverwinter's style of play.
2- On Songblade change your performance bar to 1000 like Minstrel. for both paragons divide the bar into 3 parts, (3 octaves). these 3 octaves can serve as an effect activation condition. Example: if played in the second octave Blaze Flamenco deals 10% more damage. or if played in the second octave Blaze Flamenco is converted to Tailwind Mambo. (We'll talk about these songs later on).
3- For better synergy with the class, and strengthening the visual identity, consider working with a horizontal performance bar. I suggest a place near the cast bar. NOTE: It would be interesting for all classes if we could resize and reposition our mechanic bars in the HUD reset menu.
4- With all these adjustments in mind we can work on the idea I had for the performance. Alright, now we have more slots in performance mode and how would that work in practice? Well, my suggestion is to add a Quick Time Event Performance system whenever a song is used. (Helps to avoid macros) It could be better thought of anywhere, however I imagined taking place in 2 possible places. 1st - above the quick play slots, together using the strings as a guide, or 2nd above the horizontal performance bar.
Performance Quick Time Event: This system will create a random sequence of 6 buttons using as reference the Q, E, R, 1, 2, 3. With the help of some flag to press the sequence at the right time for each button and then execute it. the music, each button pressed would continue the melody of the chosen skill's music, it wouldn't have a specific note linked to a specific button, at least not in combat mode, this system would be a bit like a fishing system but more dynamic, it has to be something well thought out with flexible timer not to affect players who play with very high ms around the world. within that there is a point that can be discussed and maybe each person has a different opinion, I particularly find it unfair that in a sequence of 6 buttons you fail the skill by missing only 1 of them. That said, I would choose a system of proportions in the performance, something with loss proportional to the amount of wrong notes or with defined advance points, something like dividing the sequence into 2, and if you hit the first 3 notes of the first "strophe" , and miss a note of the second "stanza", the skill is nerfed at 50% and its cost too, or maybe just nerf 50% in the full cost effect to have a stronger negative point. this is the Performance Quick Time Event. 5- For the Songblade, add a performance regenerator activated on (hold tab or ctrl+tab), making it play a melody while this occurs. the Performance Quick Time Event can be implemented here as well giving a regeneration bonus on hitting the notes. 25% bonus if it hits the first stanza which is increased to 50% if it hits all 3 notes of the second stanza. 6- In Minstrel, transfer the Serenade effect to the Hold tab, make the bard play while channeling the Serenade and add % effect based on the time it played.
Feedback 2 Features and Feats Class: We need to get serious about this, it's not new that I'm talking bad about the Features and Feat Class system inside Neverwinter, and despite a few added hits to the bard, another part is totally stuck like what we currently have. in Class Features and Feat on the Live server. I don't know why developers like to lock gameplay so much by linking a Features and Feat Class to specific skills, maybe fear of not being able to balance the class or maybe simply lack of creativity.
Here are some targeted comments:
Minstrel Features Class: 1- Soloist: I don't see any need to spend an option on this. If the focus is on helping to make solo content, just add conditioners to other class features. EX: takes a feature class like Sforzando and adds a conditioner that if you are not in party its effect is activated in double, very simple. OBS, this is for the other classes that have the same effect on their options.
2- Arpeggio Fortissimo: I really like the proposal of this features class, even linking it to a specific at will, I would like it more if it were “your at will that heal has magnitude reduced by 60% and the cost increased by 50% and increases area of effect and etc... ” this would make it wider if in the future new healing will come, similar things could work in other classes.
3- Vamos Alla: why associate this with flamenco blaze? why can't it be, your songs that don't heal at least like that cover one more option with the warding carol, but i would particularly change it to: your songs apply the effect, and put a countdown, this can only be activated once every 15 seconds.
4- Play it Back: once again we are here, locked in the power of choice, I like the idea of a features class that reduces cost and has a chance of an additional one, but why just for aurora fantasy? could be: your songs that heal, cost reduced by 10% and 20% chance of reactivation at the end of the effect. NOTE: currently says it reduces the cost of maintaining the aurora fantasy to 10, but the skill itself does not speak when we lose by default, a problem for clarity.
5- Starstruck: a perfect example of how a features class can be well thought out and with specific conditions without being locked, like Sforzando, Mystifying Strike, they are correct mechanics that don't put you handcuffs of choices, I'd like more of that. Feats: Here we have the same problems as class featues, which is even worse since feats are locked after being chosen, something I find quite problematic. 1- Crescendo / Diminuendo is a beautiful example of how things should be, both are good inversely proportional options, however I would still remove the specific at will for, its at will that heal, to make room for new at will in an update distant.
2- Art of War / Rhapsody at Arms: both do not make any sense to have in the paragon of a healer, they would make more sense if they were part of Songblade, the way Rhapsody at Arms was conceived is great and serves as an example of as the feats should be, however as the songblade doesn't accumulate song effects the end condition should be different, something like 1% for each song played, accumulates up to X times. Already Art of War despite a good idea of how to modify skills is completely locked forcing you to use an at will and a specific find.
I'm not going to comment on all these effects because there are many, but you can understand my concern to repeat an idea that is already problematic and locks your gameplay currently in live, and is coming to the bard too, it's not just mistakes, but I said there were also some hits. I would like to see more of these hits and fewer of these mistakes, including for classes already in the game, I'm sure we all know the amount of class features and feats we have in our hands but they are useless, or you have 2 options to choose from where none either works for your build, or we have an option that is 10 times better than the other, don't repeat that in the bard.
In summary, my experience playing with the bard was much lower than when I played with the existing live classes, despite its innovative mechanics, its gameplay doesn't match with neverwinter, there are many things that can be done besides the suggestions I gave, a quick idea I had but I haven't elaborated on in more detail consists of special slots in performance mode, with Q, E, R being basic slots, 1 being a flat slot, 2 being a dissonant slot and 3 being a sharp slot. these slots would work similar to the spell mastery tab of the wizard. and songs would have additional effects based on the type of slot it was associated with.
Speaking of songs, change the Tailwind mambo and steel march, they are just different versions of the flamenco blaze do the same thing with different animation and area of effect and change the damage bonus, despite all these modified elements the feeling is that they are the same song. these “differences” could be defined based on slot type eg using basic, flat, dissonant and sharp slots.
The songblade uses very little songs in combat, in fact with the encounter kit it has, it's not even necessary, I made a VoS with 3 dps bards, didn't use any songs and it did the most damage, about 3 times more damage than than the others. I think your main “weapon” should be your instrument and not your sword, just like Minstrel uses songs more to heal, I think it would be much better if Songblade used songs more to deal damage. Particularly I would remove all damage encounters I could and would just put utility encounters, buffs, performance regeneration, music replay, add effect to songs these things and leave the damage to deal with the songs, and the blade of your paragon wouldn't be lost, his sword strokes can be added at the end of each song or become a new song, Duet could very well be a song, make the bard's animation playing and end with the spin in the air, just thrown ideas for your reflection.
I would like to close by asking a question to players and developers. How was it defined that the bard would use a lute as an instrument? I can be mistaken, but I think that if it was going to public vote, most likely the harp or flute would have been voted more, well but this is already a particular taste of mine, I think it has more attractive instruments.
well, i hope you have contributed at least a nice note or two to improve our dear bard's melodies.
thank you all
- ALQUImist-WL@alquimistgg#0914
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someonediesMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,257Arc User
Most hilarious OSU! adaptation I've ever seen. 1-8 keyboard control mechanic is bad thing.
Can you maybe make a radial menu so that when you hold the hotkey it pops and you can utilize the mouse; Every modern action game that has tons of weapons has a mouse-driven menu; this's exactly the same.
> @arazith07 said: > I normally 'pre-cast' the first 5 or so notes and finish the song once I wade into the enemies, you can even autorun if pushing W while typing numbers is too much for a player to handle.
I used the keypad to move and play notes, which means I wasn't able to move in performance mode. I have remapped the keys a bit and it has gotten slightly better. My biggest gripe remains the clunkiness of the Bard though. I feel like songs should be instand casts so that you can get right into the action after them. The class features way too many small periods where you can't seem to move, fight or dodge.
The following feedback is part 2 of more detailed testing of the Minstrel Paragon
Bugs
Storytellers feat is granting the tank role a 0.1x incoming damage multiplier, while affected by it regardless of stacks. This is resulting in 90%+ damage mitigation. This can be seen here:
(ACT is different to video, I just wanted to show act in a controlled environment, and gameplay against a very hard hit).
Rejuvenating Carol and Sheltering Etude critical heals are lowered by the target allies Critical Avoidance. I suspect this would also apply to Defenders Minuet and Aurora Fantasia, if they could crit.
Video Link --->https://youtube.com/watch?v=6BiHuE0ehD8 As you can see I wait until the buffs of Critical Tuning and Truly Inspired to run out to make sure there are no other variables. (ACT is from the video).
Flourish encounter doesnt work with Aurora Fantasia and Sheltering Etude.
Defenders Minuet and Aurora Fantasia (heal) cannot crit.
Rhapsody at arms is dividing incoming damage by 1.03, while affected by at least 1 song, regardless of the amount of songs.
Sudden Muse, Warding Muse: Rejuvenating Carol's duration is not doubled when used.
Sudden Muse, Healing Muse: Defender Minuet does not consume the buff effect, therefore the heal is not increased when used.
Feedback
Flourish is an additive 50% increase to the next ability used. The tooltip makes it read as it should be a multiplicative buff. With a poorly built endgame character this is giving me a 23% increase to my next heal, and a min-maxed character a 13% increase. This feels very underwhelming for 1 of my 3 encounter slots. I suggest increasing this value to 75-100%, or making it multiplicative at 50%.
Questions & Feedback
From my time playing, I cannot find a use for Delayed play encounter and the feat Vamp. Could you explain where these can be used / what space they were designed for? As I think a different alternative could be to make the encounter have 2 charges, with a longer cooldown, maybe 1 min. And have the feat reduce it back down to 1 charge, however it becomes more concentrated, making it have half the duration, but double the power.
Rejuvenating Carol seems to be underpowered compared to other Heal-Over-Times like Cleric's Healing Word.
On average the Rejuvenating Carol healed for 30k (testing was done with a 55k Bard and a 55k Justicar):
Cleric do have a very supporting HoT (Healing Word, 350 Magnitude). This is not the case for Rejuvenating Carol. The amount it heals doesn't have any impact on the groups survivability. There were mount insignias bonuses that healed more than Rejuvenating Carol.
The HoT from Rejuvenating Carol only procs every 3 seconds which is around 10k heal / second in an endgame scenario. Basically no help if you want to help group members with 600k+ (usually the case above 45k itemlevel) or a tank with over 950k HP.
I really think Rejuvenating Carol needs an increase of its magnitude by 50% - 100%. To compensate for the magnitude increase the duration of the song could be decreased.
Hello @sgrantdev and all community. Finally after days spent in levelling and testing some dungeon I can give my feedback and I hope can help devs team. I tested VoS and ToMM.
One of the bug of the class is related to the "performance". When you die as Cleric, Paladin or Warlock healer, if you used part of your divinity and scroll, that divinity will stay at the same place. With the bard healer is not like that and you can check it out here: video here-->https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx2hgMGHoss
FIRST TEST: without any feats. You can see how my performance works when I die and then revive. If I use a bit of my Performance and die, once I've used my scroll, the Performance is fully uncharged.
SECOND TEST: with all feats set up. the result is the same as the first test.
THIRD TEST: same feats, but I've only changed the 4th and used Desperate Finale. This feat says: "whenever your performance gauge drops below 200, restore 600 Performance Immediately. This effect may only occur once every 360sec". Every time I die and scroll back, regardless from the Performance I have, this is giving me back 600 immediately. Is this supposed to work like that? or is it a bug?
I tested also ToMM with one paladin tank and me on bard healer (I'm study on healer path at moment), and i noticed something of strange. I am attaching some parses from ACT. The first Parses is Tank taken dmg, and I did nothing (literally nothing only watch him try to not die). https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/345243214376206346/851237047149527070/withou.mp4
As you can see, the tank, after I played a song, takes really really low damage. I think is a bug, when you play a song with the healing bard and he will give more "damage decrease taken" than indicated, and I am referring to skills and talents, Storyteller. Storytellers feat is granting the tank role a 0.1x incoming damage multiplier, while affected by it regardless of stacks. This is resulting in 90%+ damage mitigation.
Hope to have an answer..the class is awesome to play and really something of different compared to other classes! i really like it!
Ty, AsteR
"The more I care for life, the more everything around me dies."
Thanks for the feedback and bug reports. We are parsing through the bugs and tackling them as we can. Feedback is being parsed and reviewed. Please keep the reports coming a lot of useful information has come through already.
Duet: This power needs work. I kept getting locked in midair and killed when I first started. The power does not say that you HAVE to tap the key twice to activate both parts of the power. If you're going to have two parts that HAVE to be used together, it needs to activate on the same key stroke. Otherwise the two parts need to be separated so that the two keystrokes can be done at the convenience of the player. Personally, I'd just like to see the two parts as one fluent attack that activate together on one keystroke.
Fleche: It's really good. It's really, really good. It's so good there's no point really in using another at-will. Staccato (which after replacing fleche for an hour or so I assume is supposed to be the better ST at-will?) is just no comparison to damage output as far as I could tell without ACT. And it's ranged so no need to worry about chasing things down. Completely, totally better. And good enough honestly that sometimes I just used it for AoE as well.
Con Fuoco/Moto/Brio: I used it because I wanted the synergy with the songs, but truthfully it's slow. Slow, slow, slow, slow. Reprise felt better to use and I think it did more damage with it because of proccing the song extras more times. Some cast time/magnitude tweaking might be in order?
Contre: Is wrongfully named A Due. Also, I only used it for a short time because standing there charging a power for 3 seconds is totally not fun and in team play the enemies would be dead before I'd reach cast time anyway so I already know I won't use it.
Ad Libitum: I like this. I like it a lot. But, it's maybe a little tooooo good? Smash, smash, smash, smash, duet for cleanup, next mob. Maybe the 50% proc is too high or is proccing higher than it should? Whatever the cause, I could just lay about with my sword and HAMSTER up a whole mob with this repeating encounter.
Feat Voice Throw: This needs a little extra. I like the idea of it to help out the tank a bit, but shoving 50% of my song generated threat at a tank is really only helpful in 2 situations. If the tank sucks or if the tank dies. And this supposes that I'm actually playing enough songs in combat for this to matter in those two situations, which truthfully I'm not. Once per mob and about once per minute on a boss. Performance seems to be fully regenerated and ready for use again in about 50 seconds? I didn't use a stopwatch on it but eyeballing the clock that's my estimate. I don't really have any good suggestions for what to add coming to mind just at the moment, but take a look at it and give it a think.
Performance: 1) There is a delay between the visual activating on the screen and the ability to input. It seems to be about half a second. It only killed me a few times, but the added time of the delay to the actual performance ups the "cast time" of a song and the danger of dying to it. That probably needs to be looked into. 2) After a few failed songs where I canceled perform and then opened it again later to see my notes still there, I got the idea to try to pre-play my songs. It helped a little to cut down on the cast time and for realistic play this will be the way to go but it felt like I was cheesing the game to do it that way and I hated it. And it kinda makes me like the performance aspect a lot less to know that's how I will have to play it to not die and pull my weight in a run. Also, the save time of the notes seemed to be a little unreliable. Sometimes they were there when I looked like a minute later in the next mob and sometimes they weren't there 10 seconds later.
Song Quick Slots: Why did you even bother when everything has to not be in a quick slot to proc extras? The only song to put here is the one I figure I'll never use but what the hell I should put something there just cause.
General Thoughts: I've only really played the DPS path so far, so I can't comment to the Minstrel yet. I like the idea of the bard and the playstyle. It's fun because it's fresh, but I can see where it will get annoying instead of fun in a year or so of button mashing the same combinations while trying to not fall behind the rest of the group who don't have to stop to play guitar hero between every mob. I actually don't mind the concept of the performance aspect that much since I think that (strangely for once) this *could* translate to console where I mainplay better than it is on PC; I just see where it can fall short in the context of NW. The "pre-play" method really kills the enjoyment for me though. The songs are really underwhelming to be honest. I expected them to play a bigger role, but considering the time it takes to pre-cast/cast in the perform window I don't really feel like the extras are that worth the effort of the complexity. I LIKE complexity and I will play them because that's the whole point of the character, but I can do almost as good by skipping the songs/procs almost entirely and just smashing about with attacks. Maybe even better since I can smash into the mobs faster before they're all killed by someone else. I need to spend some more time practicing ST to see if I can squeeze some extra dps out of the song procs to make it worth casting, but right now it sorta feels to me like a waste to stop and cast in the middle of a boss fight, like it's only something to do while my encounters are on cooldown if the boss attack timing is cooperative for standing still. It's more of an extra than a main mechanic if I can choose to skip it and not even notice. I'm sure it'll come down to rotation timing on each fight and memorizing what to do at each second of the fight to get the songs squeezed in, but yeah, like I said it just feels more extra to me so far than necessary.
Bug 1: Base form of Fleche and Dancing Lights do not count as either physical or magical damage (ie, do not scale off of STR or INT). They are both psychic damage, so I don't know if
Bug 2: Ballad of the Hero and Ballad of the Witch by themselves do not count as either physical or magic damage (ie, they do not scale off of STR or INT).
Bug 3: Flourish does not increase the bonus magnitude procs of Ballad of the Witch, Witch's Finale, Ballad of the Hero, and Hero's Finale.
Bug 4: Contre has a bugged description in general.
Aside from an aftermentioned bug with "A Due", the description mentions Contre Sixte, but Contre Sixte does not exist.
If player releases the Contre button immediately, the player gets Contre Seconde (the knockback attack). If the player holds down the button for 1 second, the player gets Contre Septime (the single target attack). If player holds down the button for 3 seconds, the player gets Contre Nieuvembre (the awesome looking 3 hit AoE version).
Bug 5: Masterful Performance (1): The passive seems to be carrying over between loadouts? Even when playing on the Minstrel (heal) path, I can briefly see the Masterful Performance icon popup when casting Blazing Flamenco.
Bug 6: Masterful Performance (2): As for using it on the DPS path, the math seems to be off on it.
When I don't slot in Masterful Performance, Blazing Flamenco/Steel March/Tailwind Mambo give me the +20 magnitude on attacks and the correct 2% general damage buff + 2% matching type damage buff.
When I do slot in this class feature and manually play the songs (ie, purposely put Ballad of the Hero/Witch/Rejuvinating Carol into quick play), the math on the buffs suddenly breaks.
The only logical explanation I found was that the Masterful Performance bonus was being duplicated for some strange reason (I did not have Flourish slotted or used when checking this).
So, normally, if you're supposed to get a 2% damage buff With bugged Masterful Performance, I was getting: General damage buff: 2%*1.5*1.5*1.5 = 6.75% damage buff Matching type damage bonus: 2*1.5*1.5 = 4.5% damage buff
If you want to check out what's going on with my character, my character is Dorothea@rjc9000.
Feedback:
Feedback 1 Masterful Performance: Please be specific with what Masterful Performance buffs (ie, the bonus magnitude procs, the general damage buff, and/or the physical/magic/projectile matching damage buff).
Questions:
Question 1: What exactly does Masterful Performance increase in effectiveness? From my checks, it does not increase the bonus magnitude procs and only increased the potency of the buffs, albeit very strangely.
Question 2: Is it intended that Flourish used on songs only affects their healing/damage buffs and not their bonus magnitude procs?
Minstrel
Bugs:
Bug 1: Gambler Stacks: When storing any song with Delayed Play, all Gambler stacks instantly clear.
Bug 2: Gambler Stacks: Related to the above: when using any of the Reprised Carol songs with Delayed Play, the Gambler's song is not stored, and the player gets the terrible heal over time Gambler effect due to the clearing of Gambler stacks.
I am not sure if this is expected to happen, but I hope it isn't intended. From the few I have talked to, Gambler is considered the weaker of the two last feats due to its unreliability and Performance cost relative to the "free" bonuses of Storyteller. Being able to store the Gambler special effect via Delayed Play could have some interesting gameplay and lead to Gambler being considered a more viable option.
Bug 3: Reprised Carol: Recover: The Shields provided from Reprised Carol: Recover are ridiculously small no matter if you did 5 stacks of Gambler, 3 stacks, or 1 stack.
The shields provided are so small I thought it didn't even work until I saw a small section of teal on the HP bar.
Feedback:
Feedback 1: Delayed Play and Vamp: Please be specific with mentioning how Performance is or isn't deducted with Vamp.
The description states that it just lets you replay a song and that's it, only good for players who want to spam a specific song in case of emergencies. I and a few others thought that Vamp it technically a downgrade, since it casts the song twice and theoretically consumes twice as much Performance, but it doesn't. You incur the Performance cost when the song is stored, not when it's recast.
If you use Vamp, the song isn't cleared, technically giving you a free use of a song. That was not clear by how the tooltip was written, so explaining that in the tooltip would make Vamp's use easier to understand.
(Edit) Feedback 1.5: Delayed Play: Delayed Play loses effectiveness once the player becomes better at playing the class. I would suggest Delayed Play no or halved Performance cost when storing a spell..
If you use Delayed Play with Vamp, you get a "free" song, albeit one that requires some a feat, an encounter slot, and some luck to proc Vamp. If you don't use Vamp, it serves as a "third" quick slot that can procs the Inspiration passive, but that utility quickly fades once the player learns the songss.
To keep Delayed Play more relevant at at higher levels of play, I would suggest letting it incur halved, if not no cost to your Performance when storing a song. That way, it not only acts as a tool for helping out less experienced players, but also a tool of conserving resources for situations such as heal checks.
Feedback 2: Reprised Carols Enhanced/Recover: Can the dev team replace the generic green Enhanced Reprise Carol icon with the icons of the base Reprised Carols?
Although memorizing the songs is part of the learning curve, it would be nice if both of the Enhanced Reprised Carols did not have the same icon. I can foresee panicking player accidentally cast Reprised Carol Enhance when they wanted Reprised Carol Recover, or vise versa due to the pinned song icons using being the same.
Feedback 3: Gambler: If the Delayed Play behavior with the Gambler specific songs is not a bug and is intended, can the dev team make it possible for Gambler songs to be stored in Delayed Play/Vamp?
Whereas Storyteller is good without any extra investment from the player, Gambler has huge bonuses (things like 10% Recharge Speed/Stamina Gain per stack of Gambler) balanced by RNG not allowing the player to always get the effect they want. Enter Vamp/Delayed Play, which allows the player to mitigate a portion of this RNG.
Casted Delayed Pray/Vamp with the Reprised Carol Recovery and then found out you got lucky with an Action Point proc? Tell your Wizard to burn Arcane Empowerment, and once it finishes, replenish their Action Points in preparation for another Arcane Empowerment.
Managed to store the Mitigation proc from Reprised Carol Enhanced? Save it in preparation for big hits, or if you see that someone on your team screwed up a mechanic and multiple downs will happen.
Allowing the player to use Delayed Play/Vamp and store/reuse these effects could lead to some dynamic gameplay based around pre-planning the Gambler uses.
Post edited by rjc9000 on
2
mamalion1234Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,415Arc User
jaarlax do not give any quest for hit 20 for the class sigil quests.
Feedback 1: I haven't personally played the bard yet, but it would seem more logical to me that the songs would give out utility buffs and last longer. For example, one song might increase the item level of all nearby allies by X for 300 seconds, while another might grant all nearby players +X% movement speed for 300 seconds. Just a suggestion to appease the people that have played and know how clunky the song mechanics are in combat. Perhaps you can perform whenever (in or out of combat) and IF you hit a certain combination of notes in a certain order you gain the song's ability. I also believe that the perform action bar is less useful and should be removed entirely. A bard should be able to perform for as long as they want.
Feedback 1: I haven't personally played the bard yet, but it would seem more logical to me that the songs would give out utility buffs and last longer. For example, one song might increase the item level of all nearby allies by X for 300 seconds, while another might grant all nearby players +X% movement speed for 300 seconds.
Just a suggestion to appease the people that have played and know how clunky the song mechanics are in combat. Perhaps you can perform whenever (in or out of combat) and IF you hit a certain combination of notes in a certain order you gain the song's ability.
This is how it already works (apart from the 3 songs which must be played in combat). You press a combination of notes in a certain order, in or out of combat to get the song's ability.
I am just really confused about what you are trying to say. Id suggest trying it on preview before giving feedback, otherwise you dont see the full picture and it makes no sense.
And this supposes that I'm actually playing enough songs in combat for this to matter in those two situations, which truthfully I'm not. Once per mob and about once per minute on a boss. Performance seems to be fully regenerated and ready for use again in about 50 seconds? I didn't use a stopwatch on it but eyeballing the clock that's my estimate. I don't really have any good suggestions for what to add coming to mind just at the moment, but take a look at it and give it a think.
I agree with you on almost everything, have you seen my post above about how some things could be different? as you have some points of ideas converging with mine, I would like to know if anything I wrote caught your attention and what they were. it's something we can at least debate as I don't know if it will actually have any impact on development.
Overall, enjoying the bard! My concerns surround playing songs during combat. I fully appreciate the fun of the free perform and adore it, and also fully appreciate going for a "Guitar Hero" sort of experience with in-combat songs.
The concern is that this is not actually Guitar Hero. This is an MMO. This type of mechanic is not only asking a lot from players in terms of complexity, it's asking for far more complexity than of any other class. Bard is our first new class in years; it was my number one hope of the new class reveal. I want it to do well, be well-received, and incentivize the developers to bring more new classes!
This is not merely an issue of it being a complicated class to play. It asks for far more hand dexterity of players than any other class, which is an accessibility issue. We already do a lot of button clicking, for sure. This physically feels like twice the button clicking. I foresee this happening:
-you have to stop running to play a song, and hope the party waits for you; maybe they will, maybe they won't, depends how much they care about your buff or heal.
-you play only the quickplay songs, which means you don't get the benefits of your feats for manual songs. People won't run with you if you can't/won't play any manual songs.
-use Options to add additional keybinds to use the number pad instead of the 1-8 tray above your letter keys. Slightly easier but still means you have to move your hand off of your mouse to use the song feature. Or go out and buy a new mouse that has a number pad, so now you need new hardware just to make this class accessible to you.
It will lead to elitism quickly. It will go the way of the old Anointed Champion; everyone wanted Anointed Army up 100% of the time, and if you weren't playing ACDC or couldn't provide constant AA then you "weren't good" or "weren't wanted." Poor Divine Oracles.
This is not just a "get good" situation but is a barrier to people playing this class. Normally if you make a mistake during your rotation, well okay, just wait for the cooldowns to end. Not the same with songs. If you mess up, you have to start over. Which means more standing around.
My suggestion is this: leave manual as an option for those who want it and can also do it. But also offer the option to add more quick slot songs. Maybe even extend the animation/cast time by a second or two if you really want the "your are performing a song" element (but please let us still move; as someone who actually played an instrument in grade school, and was in marching band, people can totally move and play at the same time). I would happily exchange the stress of messing up a song, and struggling to hit the right notes, for the guaranteed success of a quick slot even if it takes an extra second or two to cast.
I love that this class appeals to me as a music lover. I hope you all remember that this is, in fact, a fantasy game. I am playing Neverwinter, not Guitar Hero. I understand that it is a very powerful class, and understand that many buffing abilities were removed from classes. I understand that you want such a powerful class to be complex; add the complexity to build options. Please do not add the complexity by forcing people to be good at playing songs. I am not a rogue in my real life; I cannot sneak around, nor assassinate people silently. I am not a cleric in reality; I cannot channel divine power and cast healing spells on the wounded. I am also not a wizard, and cannot summon ice shards to hurt my enemies. So do not make it so that I have to actually be a musician in my real life to be successful at being a bard.
The problem with basing the class around keybinds is that console users don't have this ability - and console players are now the majority of the player base.
I do agree with all the points about difficulty when having to manually play in-combat though.
Please Do Not Feed The Trolls
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
I have my Bard now at Level 20, and I have played mostly the Songblade.
I like the manual mode but, I agree with other players that manual play is problematic. Currently I think the song are too complexe for a video game.
I think if the song could be simplified, to a max of 6 notes with max 3 differents notes, and the use of a simple easy combinaison. It could be something between removing the manual mode and make it more easy.
Blaze Flamenco, Defender's Minuet, Reprised Carol enhance and Reprised Carol recover are the 4 songs that have a simple pattern, I think other song could be simplified.
Example of Simplification:
Blaze Flamenco (686686)OK
Rejuvenating Carol 417412 => 412412 Tailwind Mambo 2467246 => 246246 Steel March 54467651 => 544656 Ballad of the Witch 764542 => 764467 Ballad of the Hero 15376767 => 153353
Reprised Carol:enhance (523323) OK Reprised Carol:recover (217212) OK
Anyway I play guitar and often the most popular rock song use very simple pattern of note, the best example is AC/DC.
“He raised his staff. There was a roll of thunder. The sunlight was blotted out from the eastern windows; the whole hall became suddenly dark as night. The fire faded to sullen embers. Only Gandalf could be seen, standing white and tall before the blackened hearth.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
Comments
The Vistani artifact set does not proc from the At-will Reprise and Phantasmal Concerto, and it doesnt proc on the song Blaze Flamenco
Please change this feat so that a full rotation of Con Fuoco, Con Moto and Con Brio refreshes the duration. Using all three Elemental Songs in combat (to profit from the damage) is quite complex so it feels appropriate to have the feat up all the time if you're able to properly switch between songs.
Playing songs in combat is quite annoying, especially those that dish out damage. You basically stand in the middle of mobs for 2-3 seconds before your first action. At this point in endgame content trash might already be dead. More than that, it's not very dynamic for an Action MMORPG. I can see this working for a healing spec, who more reacts to situations, but a DPS wants to get into the action as fast as possible and playing songs is surprisingly lethargic.
Having to type 8 keys on a keyboard for each song feels very clunky, complicated, and not very accessibility friendly. Not everyone has an MMO multi-button mouse to map keys and combat is fast in this game.
Can’t imagine how this is all going to map out on console. If you make it too complicated nobody will want to play it once the novelty wears off.
On average I can input 2-3 notes per second, the first song I can now input almost instantly.
I'm at least twice as fast on a controller.
I guarantee the multitudes of people far more dexterous than me will do just fine.
B flat plays an A natural instead of an actual B flat.
The lower octave notes double the octave above it (i.e. base octave). This doesn't occur with C3, C#3/Db3, or D3, but it occurs with every other note, including the accidentals (aside from F flat which doesn't play at all). This means that the majority of the sound it produces isn't even the lower octave, but instead the middle octave, which can be annoying to try and use for freeplaying songs.
Instruments do do this in real life, but not to this degree, and not for that many notes.
Worth noting, I am only level 6 and only have 2 songs I can play.
I'd like to start my feedback by saying that I'm very happy to be able to test a new class after so many years of waiting, and that the things I'm going to talk about here aren't just words thrown around to complain.
Feedback 1
General Mechanics: The proposal behind the performance bar is interesting but not instinctive for Neverwinter's style of play, you can see that the people who worked on this idea had good intentions, but I'm afraid they don't play the game. This system works great in some kind of tab target game, but in action combat it works more as a brake on combat dynamics. The problem here is not in memorizing the note patterns of each song but in playing it, during my gameplay at level 20 I used manual mode a few times, but it's really disheartening, in an end game TOMM ZCM and VoS gameplay I see this being an even bigger problem. I spent all the leveling waiting for more slots for auto mode, but I was frustrated to realize that as a songblade I only have 1 single slot for 6 songs and as minstrel I only have 2 for 8 songs, at that point I realized how complicated all this would be. Don't get me wrong, I like a more complex gameplay, but the way this is being developed and it doesn't suit neverwinter's style it forces you to play in a specific way, and I honestly am tired of this plastered style of play.
Bug 1
About the bugs I think all the ones I noticed were mentioned before by our fellow gamers. Stuck movement (expected to be just a test), some effects that don't work well, time to switch from encounter mode to slow performance mode, etc.
Suggestion 1
I know that hardly anything like that would happen, I'll try anyway.
1- Eliminate this manual performance system, just leave it to play outside of combat for RPG. For combat let us use quick play with the Q, E, R, 1, 2, 3 slots. That would be much more comfortable for neverwinter's style of play.
2- On Songblade change your performance bar to 1000 like Minstrel. for both paragons divide the bar into 3 parts, (3 octaves). these 3 octaves can serve as an effect activation condition. Example: if played in the second octave Blaze Flamenco deals 10% more damage. or if played in the second octave Blaze Flamenco is converted to Tailwind Mambo. (We'll talk about these songs later on).
3- For better synergy with the class, and strengthening the visual identity, consider working with a horizontal performance bar. I suggest a place near the cast bar. NOTE: It would be interesting for all classes if we could resize and reposition our mechanic bars in the HUD reset menu.
4- With all these adjustments in mind we can work on the idea I had for the performance. Alright, now we have more slots in performance mode and how would that work in practice? Well, my suggestion is to add a Quick Time Event Performance system whenever a song is used. (Helps to avoid macros) It could be better thought of anywhere, however I imagined taking place in 2 possible places. 1st - above the quick play slots, together using the strings as a guide, or 2nd above the horizontal performance bar.
Performance Quick Time Event:
This system will create a random sequence of 6 buttons using as reference the Q, E, R, 1, 2, 3. With the help of some flag to press the sequence at the right time for each button and then execute it. the music, each button pressed would continue the melody of the chosen skill's music, it wouldn't have a specific note linked to a specific button, at least not in combat mode, this system would be a bit like a fishing system but more dynamic, it has to be something well thought out with flexible timer not to affect players who play with very high ms around the world. within that there is a point that can be discussed and maybe each person has a different opinion, I particularly find it unfair that in a sequence of 6 buttons you fail the skill by missing only 1 of them. That said, I would choose a system of proportions in the performance, something with loss proportional to the amount of wrong notes or with defined advance points, something like dividing the sequence into 2, and if you hit the first 3 notes of the first "strophe" , and miss a note of the second "stanza", the skill is nerfed at 50% and its cost too, or maybe just nerf 50% in the full cost effect to have a stronger negative point. this is the Performance Quick Time Event.
5- For the Songblade, add a performance regenerator activated on (hold tab or ctrl+tab), making it play a melody while this occurs. the Performance Quick Time Event can be implemented here as well giving a regeneration bonus on hitting the notes. 25% bonus if it hits the first stanza which is increased to 50% if it hits all 3 notes of the second stanza.
6- In Minstrel, transfer the Serenade effect to the Hold tab, make the bard play while channeling the Serenade and add % effect based on the time it played.
Feedback 2
Features and Feats Class: We need to get serious about this, it's not new that I'm talking bad about the Features and Feat Class system inside Neverwinter, and despite a few added hits to the bard, another part is totally stuck like what we currently have. in Class Features and Feat on the Live server. I don't know why developers like to lock gameplay so much by linking a Features and Feat Class to specific skills, maybe fear of not being able to balance the class or maybe simply lack of creativity.
Here are some targeted comments:
Minstrel
Features Class:
1- Soloist: I don't see any need to spend an option on this. If the focus is on helping to make solo content, just add conditioners to other class features. EX: takes a feature class like Sforzando and adds a conditioner that if you are not in party its effect is activated in double, very simple. OBS, this is for the other classes that have the same effect on their options.
2- Arpeggio Fortissimo: I really like the proposal of this features class, even linking it to a specific at will, I would like it more if it were “your at will that heal has magnitude reduced by 60% and the cost increased by 50% and increases area of effect and etc... ” this would make it wider if in the future new healing will come, similar things could work in other classes.
3- Vamos Alla: why associate this with flamenco blaze? why can't it be, your songs that don't heal at least like that cover one more option with the warding carol, but i would particularly change it to: your songs apply the effect, and put a countdown, this can only be activated once every 15 seconds.
4- Play it Back: once again we are here, locked in the power of choice, I like the idea of a features class that reduces cost and has a chance of an additional one, but why just for aurora fantasy? could be: your songs that heal, cost reduced by 10% and 20% chance of reactivation at the end of the effect. NOTE: currently says it reduces the cost of maintaining the aurora fantasy to 10, but the skill itself does not speak when we lose by default, a problem for clarity.
5- Starstruck: a perfect example of how a features class can be well thought out and with specific conditions without being locked, like Sforzando, Mystifying Strike, they are correct mechanics that don't put you handcuffs of choices, I'd like more of that.
Feats:
Here we have the same problems as class featues, which is even worse since feats are locked after being chosen, something I find quite problematic.
1- Crescendo / Diminuendo is a beautiful example of how things should be, both are good inversely proportional options, however I would still remove the specific at will for, its at will that heal, to make room for new at will in an update distant.
2- Art of War / Rhapsody at Arms: both do not make any sense to have in the paragon of a healer, they would make more sense if they were part of Songblade, the way Rhapsody at Arms was conceived is great and serves as an example of as the feats should be, however as the songblade doesn't accumulate song effects the end condition should be different, something like 1% for each song played, accumulates up to X times. Already Art of War despite a good idea of how to modify skills is completely locked forcing you to use an at will and a specific find.
I'm not going to comment on all these effects because there are many, but you can understand my concern to repeat an idea that is already problematic and locks your gameplay currently in live, and is coming to the bard too, it's not just mistakes, but I said there were also some hits. I would like to see more of these hits and fewer of these mistakes, including for classes already in the game, I'm sure we all know the amount of class features and feats we have in our hands but they are useless, or you have 2 options to choose from where none either works for your build, or we have an option that is 10 times better than the other, don't repeat that in the bard.
In summary, my experience playing with the bard was much lower than when I played with the existing live classes, despite its innovative mechanics, its gameplay doesn't match with neverwinter, there are many things that can be done besides the suggestions I gave, a quick idea I had but I haven't elaborated on in more detail consists of special slots in performance mode, with Q, E, R being basic slots, 1 being a flat slot, 2 being a dissonant slot and 3 being a sharp slot. these slots would work similar to the spell mastery tab of the wizard. and songs would have additional effects based on the type of slot it was associated with.
Speaking of songs, change the Tailwind mambo and steel march, they are just different versions of the flamenco blaze do the same thing with different animation and area of effect and change the damage bonus, despite all these modified elements the feeling is that they are the same song. these “differences” could be defined based on slot type eg using basic, flat, dissonant and sharp slots.
The songblade uses very little songs in combat, in fact with the encounter kit it has, it's not even necessary, I made a VoS with 3 dps bards, didn't use any songs and it did the most damage, about 3 times more damage than than the others. I think your main “weapon” should be your instrument and not your sword, just like Minstrel uses songs more to heal, I think it would be much better if Songblade used songs more to deal damage. Particularly I would remove all damage encounters I could and would just put utility encounters, buffs, performance regeneration, music replay, add effect to songs these things and leave the damage to deal with the songs, and the blade of your paragon wouldn't be lost, his sword strokes can be added at the end of each song or become a new song, Duet could very well be a song, make the bard's animation playing and end with the spin in the air, just thrown ideas for your reflection.
I would like to close by asking a question to players and developers. How was it defined that the bard would use a lute as an instrument? I can be mistaken, but I think that if it was going to public vote, most likely the harp or flute would have been voted more, well but this is already a particular taste of mine, I think it has more attractive instruments.
well, i hope you have contributed at least a nice note or two to improve our dear bard's melodies.
thank you all
Can you maybe make a radial menu so that when you hold the hotkey it pops and you can utilize the mouse;
Every modern action game that has tons of weapons has a mouse-driven menu; this's exactly the same.
Idk really; what are the controls on the gamepad?
Dead🔪> I normally 'pre-cast' the first 5 or so notes and finish the song once I wade into the enemies, you can even autorun if pushing W while typing numbers is too much for a player to handle.
I used the keypad to move and play notes, which means I wasn't able to move in performance mode. I have remapped the keys a bit and it has gotten slightly better. My biggest gripe remains the clunkiness of the Bard though. I feel like songs should be instand casts so that you can get right into the action after them. The class features way too many small periods where you can't seem to move, fight or dodge.
The following feedback is part 2 of more detailed testing of the Minstrel Paragon
Bugs
Video Link ---> https://youtube.com/watch?v=UKuRXD3pyhs
(ACT is different to video, I just wanted to show act in a controlled environment, and gameplay against a very hard hit).
Video Link ---> https://youtube.com/watch?v=6BiHuE0ehD8
As you can see I wait until the buffs of Critical Tuning and Truly Inspired to run out to make sure there are no other variables.
(ACT is from the video).
Feedback
Questions & Feedback
Rejuvenating Carol seems to be underpowered compared to other Heal-Over-Times like Cleric's Healing Word.
On average the Rejuvenating Carol healed for 30k (testing was done with a 55k Bard and a 55k Justicar):
Cleric do have a very supporting HoT (Healing Word, 350 Magnitude). This is not the case for Rejuvenating Carol. The amount it heals doesn't have any impact on the groups survivability. There were mount insignias bonuses that healed more than Rejuvenating Carol.
The HoT from Rejuvenating Carol only procs every 3 seconds which is around 10k heal / second in an endgame scenario. Basically no help if you want to help group members with 600k+ (usually the case above 45k itemlevel) or a tank with over 950k HP.
I really think Rejuvenating Carol needs an increase of its magnitude by 50% - 100%. To compensate for the magnitude increase the duration of the song could be decreased.
I tested VoS and ToMM.
One of the bug of the class is related to the "performance".
When you die as Cleric, Paladin or Warlock healer, if you used part of your divinity and scroll, that divinity will stay at the same place. With the bard healer is not like that and you can check it out here: video here-->
FIRST TEST: without any feats. You can see how my performance works when I die and then revive. If I use a bit of my Performance and die, once I've used my scroll, the Performance is fully uncharged.
SECOND TEST: with all feats set up. the result is the same as the first test.
THIRD TEST: same feats, but I've only changed the 4th and used Desperate Finale. This feat says: "whenever your performance gauge drops below 200, restore 600 Performance Immediately. This effect may only occur once every 360sec". Every time I die and scroll back, regardless from the Performance I have, this is giving me back 600 immediately.
Is this supposed to work like that? or is it a bug?
Here you can see Performance bug in VoS: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/775755486393008128/851425840931405854/Performance_Bug.mp4
Here You can see all the third bosses of VoS
https://youtube.com/watch?v=SA0SotWnZ3k
I tested also ToMM with one paladin tank and me on bard healer (I'm study on healer path at moment), and i noticed something of strange. I am attaching some parses from ACT.
The first Parses is Tank taken dmg, and I did nothing (literally nothing only watch him try to not die).
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/345243214376206346/851237047149527070/withou.mp4
You can see he take "normal" dmg.
In this other video and parses, I played ONLY ONE SONG (Blaze Flamengo).
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/345243214376206346/851237714245189642/with_song.mp4
As you can see, the tank, after I played a song, takes really really low damage. I think is a bug, when you play a song with the healing bard and he will give more "damage decrease taken" than indicated, and I am referring to skills and talents, Storyteller. Storytellers feat is granting the tank role a 0.1x incoming damage multiplier, while affected by it regardless of stacks. This is resulting in 90%+ damage mitigation.
Hope to have an answer..the class is awesome to play and really something of different compared to other classes! i really like it!
Ty,
AsteR
Can't claim the bard artifact (and the description of it is off).
Thanks for the feedback and bug reports. We are parsing through the bugs and tackling them as we can. Feedback is being parsed and reviewed. Please keep the reports coming a lot of useful information has come through already.
Silius
Duet: This power needs work. I kept getting locked in midair and killed when I first started. The power does not say that you HAVE to tap the key twice to activate both parts of the power. If you're going to have two parts that HAVE to be used together, it needs to activate on the same key stroke. Otherwise the two parts need to be separated so that the two keystrokes can be done at the convenience of the player. Personally, I'd just like to see the two parts as one fluent attack that activate together on one keystroke.
Fleche: It's really good. It's really, really good. It's so good there's no point really in using another at-will. Staccato (which after replacing fleche for an hour or so I assume is supposed to be the better ST at-will?) is just no comparison to damage output as far as I could tell without ACT. And it's ranged so no need to worry about chasing things down. Completely, totally better. And good enough honestly that sometimes I just used it for AoE as well.
Con Fuoco/Moto/Brio: I used it because I wanted the synergy with the songs, but truthfully it's slow. Slow, slow, slow, slow. Reprise felt better to use and I think it did more damage with it because of proccing the song extras more times. Some cast time/magnitude tweaking might be in order?
Contre: Is wrongfully named A Due. Also, I only used it for a short time because standing there charging a power for 3 seconds is totally not fun and in team play the enemies would be dead before I'd reach cast time anyway so I already know I won't use it.
Ad Libitum: I like this. I like it a lot. But, it's maybe a little tooooo good? Smash, smash, smash, smash, duet for cleanup, next mob. Maybe the 50% proc is too high or is proccing higher than it should? Whatever the cause, I could just lay about with my sword and HAMSTER up a whole mob with this repeating encounter.
Feat Voice Throw: This needs a little extra. I like the idea of it to help out the tank a bit, but shoving 50% of my song generated threat at a tank is really only helpful in 2 situations. If the tank sucks or if the tank dies. And this supposes that I'm actually playing enough songs in combat for this to matter in those two situations, which truthfully I'm not. Once per mob and about once per minute on a boss. Performance seems to be fully regenerated and ready for use again in about 50 seconds? I didn't use a stopwatch on it but eyeballing the clock that's my estimate. I don't really have any good suggestions for what to add coming to mind just at the moment, but take a look at it and give it a think.
Performance:
1) There is a delay between the visual activating on the screen and the ability to input. It seems to be about half a second. It only killed me a few times, but the added time of the delay to the actual performance ups the "cast time" of a song and the danger of dying to it. That probably needs to be looked into.
2) After a few failed songs where I canceled perform and then opened it again later to see my notes still there, I got the idea to try to pre-play my songs. It helped a little to cut down on the cast time and for realistic play this will be the way to go but it felt like I was cheesing the game to do it that way and I hated it. And it kinda makes me like the performance aspect a lot less to know that's how I will have to play it to not die and pull my weight in a run. Also, the save time of the notes seemed to be a little unreliable. Sometimes they were there when I looked like a minute later in the next mob and sometimes they weren't there 10 seconds later.
Song Quick Slots: Why did you even bother when everything has to not be in a quick slot to proc extras? The only song to put here is the one I figure I'll never use but what the hell I should put something there just cause.
General Thoughts: I've only really played the DPS path so far, so I can't comment to the Minstrel yet. I like the idea of the bard and the playstyle. It's fun because it's fresh, but I can see where it will get annoying instead of fun in a year or so of button mashing the same combinations while trying to not fall behind the rest of the group who don't have to stop to play guitar hero between every mob. I actually don't mind the concept of the performance aspect that much since I think that (strangely for once) this *could* translate to console where I mainplay better than it is on PC; I just see where it can fall short in the context of NW. The "pre-play" method really kills the enjoyment for me though. The songs are really underwhelming to be honest. I expected them to play a bigger role, but considering the time it takes to pre-cast/cast in the perform window I don't really feel like the extras are that worth the effort of the complexity. I LIKE complexity and I will play them because that's the whole point of the character, but I can do almost as good by skipping the songs/procs almost entirely and just smashing about with attacks. Maybe even better since I can smash into the mobs faster before they're all killed by someone else. I need to spend some more time practicing ST to see if I can squeeze some extra dps out of the song procs to make it worth casting, but right now it sorta feels to me like a waste to stop and cast in the middle of a boss fight, like it's only something to do while my encounters are on cooldown if the boss attack timing is cooperative for standing still. It's more of an extra than a main mechanic if I can choose to skip it and not even notice. I'm sure it'll come down to rotation timing on each fight and memorizing what to do at each second of the fight to get the songs squeezed in, but yeah, like I said it just feels more extra to me so far than necessary.
Songblade
Bugs:- Bug 1: Base form of Fleche and Dancing Lights do not count as either physical or magical damage (ie, do not scale off of STR or INT). They are both psychic damage, so I don't know if
- Bug 2: Ballad of the Hero and Ballad of the Witch by themselves do not count as either physical or magic damage (ie, they do not scale off of STR or INT).
- Bug 3: Flourish does not increase the bonus magnitude procs of Ballad of the Witch, Witch's Finale, Ballad of the Hero, and Hero's Finale.
- Bug 4: Contre has a bugged description in general.
- Bug 5: Masterful Performance (1): The passive seems to be carrying over between loadouts? Even when playing on the Minstrel (heal) path, I can briefly see the Masterful Performance icon popup when casting Blazing Flamenco.
- Bug 6: Masterful Performance (2): As for using it on the DPS path, the math seems to be off on it.
Feedback:Aside from an aftermentioned bug with "A Due", the description mentions Contre Sixte, but Contre Sixte does not exist.
If player releases the Contre button immediately, the player gets Contre Seconde (the knockback attack).
If the player holds down the button for 1 second, the player gets Contre Septime (the single target attack).
If player holds down the button for 3 seconds, the player gets Contre Nieuvembre (the awesome looking 3 hit AoE version).
When I don't slot in Masterful Performance, Blazing Flamenco/Steel March/Tailwind Mambo give me the +20 magnitude on attacks and the correct 2% general damage buff + 2% matching type damage buff.
When I do slot in this class feature and manually play the songs (ie, purposely put Ballad of the Hero/Witch/Rejuvinating Carol into quick play), the math on the buffs suddenly breaks.
The only logical explanation I found was that the Masterful Performance bonus was being duplicated for some strange reason (I did not have Flourish slotted or used when checking this).
So, normally, if you're supposed to get a 2% damage buff
With bugged Masterful Performance, I was getting:
General damage buff: 2%*1.5*1.5*1.5 = 6.75% damage buff
Matching type damage bonus: 2*1.5*1.5 = 4.5% damage buff
If you want to check out what's going on with my character, my character is Dorothea@rjc9000.
- Feedback 1 Masterful Performance: Please be specific with what Masterful Performance buffs (ie, the bonus magnitude procs, the general damage buff, and/or the physical/magic/projectile matching damage buff).
Questions:Minstrel
Bugs:- Bug 1: Gambler Stacks: When storing any song with Delayed Play, all Gambler stacks instantly clear.
- Bug 2: Gambler Stacks: Related to the above: when using any of the Reprised Carol songs with Delayed Play, the Gambler's song is not stored, and the player gets the terrible heal over time Gambler effect due to the clearing of Gambler stacks.
- Bug 3: Reprised Carol: Recover: The Shields provided from Reprised Carol: Recover are ridiculously small no matter if you did 5 stacks of Gambler, 3 stacks, or 1 stack.
Feedback:I am not sure if this is expected to happen, but I hope it isn't intended. From the few I have talked to, Gambler is considered the weaker of the two last feats due to its unreliability and Performance cost relative to the "free" bonuses of Storyteller. Being able to store the Gambler special effect via Delayed Play could have some interesting gameplay and lead to Gambler being considered a more viable option.
The shields provided are so small I thought it didn't even work until I saw a small section of teal on the HP bar.
The description states that it just lets you replay a song and that's it, only good for players who want to spam a specific song in case of emergencies. I and a few others thought that Vamp it technically a downgrade, since it casts the song twice and theoretically consumes twice as much Performance, but it doesn't. You incur the Performance cost when the song is stored, not when it's recast.
If you use Vamp, the song isn't cleared, technically giving you a free use of a song. That was not clear by how the tooltip was written, so explaining that in the tooltip would make Vamp's use easier to understand.
If you use Delayed Play with Vamp, you get a "free" song, albeit one that requires some a feat, an encounter slot, and some luck to proc Vamp.
If you don't use Vamp, it serves as a "third" quick slot that can procs the Inspiration passive, but that utility quickly fades once the player learns the songss.
To keep Delayed Play more relevant at at higher levels of play, I would suggest letting it incur halved, if not no cost to your Performance when storing a song. That way, it not only acts as a tool for helping out less experienced players, but also a tool of conserving resources for situations such as heal checks.
Although memorizing the songs is part of the learning curve, it would be nice if both of the Enhanced Reprised Carols did not have the same icon. I can foresee panicking player accidentally cast Reprised Carol Enhance when they wanted Reprised Carol Recover, or vise versa due to the pinned song icons using being the same.
Whereas Storyteller is good without any extra investment from the player, Gambler has huge bonuses (things like 10% Recharge Speed/Stamina Gain per stack of Gambler) balanced by RNG not allowing the player to always get the effect they want. Enter Vamp/Delayed Play, which allows the player to mitigate a portion of this RNG.
Casted Delayed Pray/Vamp with the Reprised Carol Recovery and then found out you got lucky with an Action Point proc? Tell your Wizard to burn Arcane Empowerment, and once it finishes, replenish their Action Points in preparation for another Arcane Empowerment.
Managed to store the Mitigation proc from Reprised Carol Enhanced? Save it in preparation for big hits, or if you see that someone on your team screwed up a mechanic and multiple downs will happen.
Allowing the player to use Delayed Play/Vamp and store/reuse these effects could lead to some dynamic gameplay based around pre-planning the Gambler uses.
This is how it already works (apart from the 3 songs which must be played in combat). You press a combination of notes in a certain order, in or out of combat to get the song's ability.
I am just really confused about what you are trying to say. Id suggest trying it on preview before giving feedback, otherwise you dont see the full picture and it makes no sense.
The concern is that this is not actually Guitar Hero. This is an MMO. This type of mechanic is not only asking a lot from players in terms of complexity, it's asking for far more complexity than of any other class. Bard is our first new class in years; it was my number one hope of the new class reveal. I want it to do well, be well-received, and incentivize the developers to bring more new classes!
This is not merely an issue of it being a complicated class to play. It asks for far more hand dexterity of players than any other class, which is an accessibility issue. We already do a lot of button clicking, for sure. This physically feels like twice the button clicking. I foresee this happening:
-you have to stop running to play a song, and hope the party waits for you; maybe they will, maybe they won't, depends how much they care about your buff or heal.
-you play only the quickplay songs, which means you don't get the benefits of your feats for manual songs. People won't run with you if you can't/won't play any manual songs.
-use Options to add additional keybinds to use the number pad instead of the 1-8 tray above your letter keys. Slightly easier but still means you have to move your hand off of your mouse to use the song feature. Or go out and buy a new mouse that has a number pad, so now you need new hardware just to make this class accessible to you.
It will lead to elitism quickly. It will go the way of the old Anointed Champion; everyone wanted Anointed Army up 100% of the time, and if you weren't playing ACDC or couldn't provide constant AA then you "weren't good" or "weren't wanted." Poor Divine Oracles.
This is not just a "get good" situation but is a barrier to people playing this class. Normally if you make a mistake during your rotation, well okay, just wait for the cooldowns to end. Not the same with songs. If you mess up, you have to start over. Which means more standing around.
My suggestion is this: leave manual as an option for those who want it and can also do it. But also offer the option to add more quick slot songs. Maybe even extend the animation/cast time by a second or two if you really want the "your are performing a song" element (but please let us still move; as someone who actually played an instrument in grade school, and was in marching band, people can totally move and play at the same time). I would happily exchange the stress of messing up a song, and struggling to hit the right notes, for the guaranteed success of a quick slot even if it takes an extra second or two to cast.
I love that this class appeals to me as a music lover. I hope you all remember that this is, in fact, a fantasy game. I am playing Neverwinter, not Guitar Hero. I understand that it is a very powerful class, and understand that many buffing abilities were removed from classes. I understand that you want such a powerful class to be complex; add the complexity to build options. Please do not add the complexity by forcing people to be good at playing songs. I am not a rogue in my real life; I cannot sneak around, nor assassinate people silently. I am not a cleric in reality; I cannot channel divine power and cast healing spells on the wounded. I am also not a wizard, and cannot summon ice shards to hurt my enemies. So do not make it so that I have to actually be a musician in my real life to be successful at being a bard.
I do agree with all the points about difficulty when having to manually play in-combat though.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
I like the manual mode but, I agree with other players that manual play is problematic.
Currently I think the song are too complexe for a video game.
I think if the song could be simplified, to a max of 6 notes with max 3 differents notes, and the use of a simple easy combinaison. It could be something between removing the manual mode and make it more easy.
Blaze Flamenco, Defender's Minuet, Reprised Carol enhance and Reprised Carol recover are the 4 songs that have a simple pattern, I think other song could be simplified.
Example of Simplification:
Blaze Flamenco (686686)OK
Rejuvenating Carol 417412 => 412412
Tailwind Mambo 2467246 => 246246
Steel March 54467651 => 544656
Ballad of the Witch 764542 => 764467
Ballad of the Hero 15376767 => 153353
Defender's Minuet (446677)OK
Warding Carol 35445343 => 354453
Aurora Fantasia 3453676 => 345354
Sheltering Etude 41627 => 41616
Reprised Carol:enhance (523323) OK
Reprised Carol:recover (217212) OK
Anyway I play guitar and often the most popular rock song use very simple pattern of note, the best example is AC/DC.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers