Not a bug but, why don't any Bard Daily's have any magnitude of damage attributed to them, Encore is never a consideration for me, Inspiration is all I use, I know Bards are buffers but we have our pride and it would be nice to see a daily that did some magnitude of damage.
💥💥 Some of these bugs could be fixed on live server RIGHT NOW without further testing. Changing a decimal point in bards 5th feat (Lotemaster) for example.
You guys should identify all the easy bugs and rush them out. The Bard came out in June.... 10 months ago, we shouldnt have to wait longer for easy bug fixes
💥💥 Some of these bugs could be fixed on live server RIGHT NOW without further testing. Changing a decimal point in bards 5th feat (Lotemaster) for example.
You guys should identify all the easy bugs and rush them out. The Bard came out in June.... 10 months ago, we shouldnt have to wait longer for easy bug fixes
I agree. I really want to play as a bard and honestly just a couple of fixes would make it viable.
As a console player, hands down the bugs that frustrate me the MOST are on songblade: 1) Steel March always using your entire music resource...divinity? Whatever it's called lol 2) "you must wait longer after playing a song" 3) The giant delay after casting a song and being able to use a modified version of Con Elemento at-will. Even if you previously had it modified to an element, after casting a new song it will come out as the normal version 🤔 You have to wait a good 2-3 seconds for the "you must wait longer after playing a song" and then a delay before casting Con Elemento with modifier activated.
All of those effect how the bard PLAYS, and should be fixed ASAP. You wont be able to get an accurate power level while these still exist, no matter how many other bugs you fix
I agree 200% with this.
For the delay after manually playing a song it's really annoying , I'm a PC player and In real life I play Guitar, So I manually play song very fast with my left hand. To avoid the delay I'm forced to play 3-4 note wait and play the last 3-4 note. I should not be punished for player that want to use macro. Playing song manually very fast should be an advantage for player that have those skills.
“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
Maybe I missed it but is there a way we can heal outside of our group. Think someone mentioned that when doing heroic encounters we are unable to heal anyone
This is looking like a very popular request.
I'll see what we can do here. I hope to have some news early next week.
Ok, I took a look at this, and I actually think the original plan (as revealed in the existing power tooltips) was pretty sensible. It's just that it wasn't implemented. Here's what I plan to change: * Powers that affect multiple friendlies and currently refer to "nearby allies" will be switched to work on non-party members. Note this includes most heals. This would be a buff to roughly 8-10 powers. * Powers that affect multiple friendlies but specifically refer to "party members" will be left as-is (party members only). Most of these seem to be party members for a good reason: for example, Voice Throw lets you shed aggro onto a nearby tank, which really you should be doing on your own tank, not some other group's (that would just be rude). Or Defender's Minuet, which heals a single nearby party member. If you can only affect one player, better it be a party member, because those are the people whose health you are monitoring and you are responsible for.
There might be an exception or two to the above, if I find something that seems like it needs special treatment, but the above is my basic plan.
Based on what rgutschera said regarding AP gain, "You must wait longer after playing a Song" and "You can't do that right now" delays appear to also be a design decision to normalize player song playing capabilities. Respectfully, if that is the case, I feel this design decision should be revisited:
#1 There is no need to punish Freddie Fastfinger for playing a song more quickly than Slowhand Sal. If this design decision has to stick, can the forced delay be reduced? Why aren't other classes normalized in this way? For example, if a player is faster at pushing out their Encounter rotation, then they will have more time to use at-wills. It's no different.
I did want to address this.
The "you must wait longer" was meant as an anti-macro thing. Definitely NOT meant to be a normalization or equalization. I agree that would be annoying.
The Freddie/Sal thing was meant just to be about AP generation. You get 22AP/sec, and I was trying to explain why that was OK. You get 22 AP/sec across the game, so having it be that way for bard songs I thought was reasonable, for the reasons I explained. But it's not part of some overall normalization thing; it's really just about that specific AP calculation.
Ideally, nobody who wasn't macroing would ever see the "you must wait longer" message. I don't know if that's something I can entirely fix (it seems to be entangled in with netlag in some weird ways I don't 100% understand yet), but I'm taking a look. Maybe it's something I can at least improve a bit.
As a question that might help me address this: do people (who aren't macro'ing) find that they see the "wait longer" message more often on easier/shorter songs like Blaze Flamenco? Or do they see the message more often on harder/longer songs like Ballad of the Hero? Or does it not make a difference?
I don’t macro my songs and experience the delay with both easier to play and more difficult to play songs, but it would be nice to hear from others.
The experience is actually so bad for me between the delay entering Performance Mode, playing a song, and having to wait after exiting Performance mode, that I avoid playing Ballads altogether and focus on elemental songs.
Game design currently revolves around short periods of combat windows where much of your precious time healing or doing damage is consumed with the ‘clunkiness’ of the Performance mode/UI. Personally, this takes the immersion away for me as I feel the Bard is a precision-based class (and should be ‘rewarded’ as such).
I don’t macro my songs and experience the delay with both easier to play and more difficult to play songs, but it would be nice to hear from others.
The experience is actually so bad for me between the delay entering Performance Mode, playing a song, and having to wait after exiting Performance mode, that I avoid playing Ballads altogether and focus on elemental songs.
Game design currently revolves around short periods of combat windows where much of your precious time healing or doing damage is consumed with the ‘clunkiness’ of the Performance mode/UI. Personally, this takes the immersion away for me as I feel the Bard is a precision-based class (and should be ‘rewarded’ as such).
I've stopped playing my Bard other than messing with playing the Lute for entertainment only because of this. An example of what I noticed is weird that chases me away from the Bard class is when I'm in battle and play a spell, regardless of how I play it whether manually or with a keybind "macro", after the spell plays and the spinny animation plays there's a delay in going back to being able attack or dodge attackers. I take damage and die because the toon raises his right hand after playing a spell (Blaze Flemenco is the only spell I have) for reasons I don't understand during the animation for the spell being cast.
Ruins the fun having that delay there where I can't do anything but watch the toon go through the animation as he/she gets slammed by attackers.
Ideally, nobody who wasn't macroing would ever see the "you must wait longer" message. I don't know if that's something I can entirely fix (it seems to be entangled in with netlag in some weird ways I don't 100% understand yet), but I'm taking a look. Maybe it's something I can at least improve a bit.
As a question that might help me address this: do people (who aren't macro'ing) find that they see the "wait longer" message more often on easier/shorter songs like Blaze Flamenco? Or do they see the message more often on harder/longer songs like Ballad of the Hero? Or does it not make a difference?
I get it pretty much on every song you'd use regularly.
Once you play enough Bard and start getting used to the inputs, you can quickly input the songs by muscle memory alone.
@rgutscheradev console player here with, if I am being honest, very bad coordination. I can get the delay and wait pop up in every song. As people mentioned , muscle memory is working great at this.
Based on what you say, you seem to understand the issues with the whole netlag, interfacing and general clunkiness of the current bard performance. Whatever constrain exists to create that wait pop up, why not remove it completely? Let the people playing with macro do their game, it's their lose for not enjoying the class. As someone said, performance is not infinite, so yes they might get the advantage of doing something extra, hitting 1 more at will, but we get more AP from that song. Your idea and fix around AP is already providing a great trade-off between speeding up a song or taking your time for the benefit of the AP.
For me, as for many more, the bard is currently choking at every scenario that becomes a bit intense and hectic, where you would want your toon to excel. Hitting the performance, not popping up, hitting it again, disappearing, waiting to make sure that it's stable, hitting it again, playing a song and waiting..... If you can remove as much of that pain as you can everyone will appreciate it. And the day that the bard becomes so overpowered because of it that clerics starts stripping their toons to heal with bard, then you can gradually re-introduce it.
Great work, and thank you for the communication line.
Maybe I missed it but is there a way we can heal outside of our group. Think someone mentioned that when doing heroic encounters we are unable to heal anyone
This is looking like a very popular request.
I'll see what we can do here. I hope to have some news early next week.
Ok, I took a look at this, and I actually think the original plan (as revealed in the existing power tooltips) was pretty sensible. It's just that it wasn't implemented. Here's what I plan to change: * Powers that affect multiple friendlies and currently refer to "nearby allies" will be switched to work on non-party members. Note this includes most heals. This would be a buff to roughly 8-10 powers. * Powers that affect multiple friendlies but specifically refer to "party members" will be left as-is (party members only). Most of these seem to be party members for a good reason: for example, Voice Throw lets you shed aggro onto a nearby tank, which really you should be doing on your own tank, not some other group's (that would just be rude). Or Defender's Minuet, which heals a single nearby party member. If you can only affect one player, better it be a party member, because those are the people whose health you are monitoring and you are responsible for.
There might be an exception or two to the above, if I find something that seems like it needs special treatment, but the above is my basic plan.
Absolutely love what you're doing here, thank you!
Pointing out below current descriptions for reference, without indicating if they are working as described: - Arpeggio = target ally - Arpeggio Fortissimio (Class Feature) = allies within 40' - Aurora Fantasia = nearby allies - Aurora Finale = nearby allies - Curtain Call = nearby allies - Defender's Minuet = nearby party member - Gambler (Feat) = nearby allies - Inspiration = nearest party member - Mystifying Strikes (Class Feature) = the player who triggered the effect - Rejuvenating Carol = nearby allies - Reprised Carol: Enhance = nearby allies - Reprised Carol: Recovery = nearby allies - Sheltering Etude = self and all nearby party members - Starstruck (Class Feature) = teammate - Storyteller (Feat) = party members within 50'
My opinions: - "Party" should be defined as up to 10 players (i.e. Trials), not capped at your immediate 5-person group. - Defender's Minuet = Should remain your party. If the Bard needs to focus the Tank or other specific target, the class has the Serenade Encounter. Hypothetically, if Defender's Minuet applied to non-party nearby allies in open world content and you are rolling solo, it would be frustrating to heal others when you're attempting to heal yourself. No changes needed. - Reprised Carol: Recovery = "Shield Absorbs damage. Regenerates every 5 seconds." This ability is incredibly over-tuned; however, it's difficult to proc, can be Performance-intensive at 5 stacks, and is more balanced in Dungeons/Trials/Skirmishes. What I feel should be avoided is the ability to apply to all allies in range. Imagine a massive dragon fight with 25 people in the instance and you have Bards popping off shields equivalent to 50% of HP bars for everyone that regenerate every 5 seconds. Sorry, fellow Bards, but I have to be fair, that's a bit overpowered! Keep Reprised Carols functioning as-is, applying only to your party (current description indirectly mentions nearby allies). - Sheltering Etude = May Sheltering Etude apply to all nearby allies instead of being limited to your party? If that's a hard sell, entertain a 10 or 15 person/nearby allies cap? - Storyteller (Feat) = Only allow stacks to apply to your party and not nearby allies. No changes needed.
Hello. Perhaps this has already been asked: It would be convenient to add key bindings to the selection settings,the ability to assign buttons to songs. Do you want to "play like a piano", you want one button. Bard would become much more popular.
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mamalion1234Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,415Arc User
Remove keybinds from powers or make songs give 0 ap when u use macro or keybind.
The "you must wait longer" was meant as an anti-macro thing. Definitely NOT meant to be a normalization or equalization. I agree that would be annoying.
The Freddie/Sal thing was meant just to be about AP generation. You get 22AP/sec, and I was trying to explain why that was OK. You get 22 AP/sec across the game, so having it be that way for bard songs I thought was reasonable, for the reasons I explained. But it's not part of some overall normalization thing; it's really just about that specific AP calculation.
Ideally, nobody who wasn't macroing would ever see the "you must wait longer" message. I don't know if that's something I can entirely fix (it seems to be entangled in with netlag in some weird ways I don't 100% understand yet), but I'm taking a look. Maybe it's something I can at least improve a bit.
As a question that might help me address this: do people (who aren't macro'ing) find that they see the "wait longer" message more often on easier/shorter songs like Blaze Flamenco? Or do they see the message more often on harder/longer songs like Ballad of the Hero? Or does it not make a difference?
First of all thanks for clarification on the issue. It would have helped if this would have been communicated during the pts testing stage, but at least its getting attention now.
I was arguing in another thread that if you build a system around automation you're almost always on the wrong path. This is your quod erat demonstrandum. The gameplay advantage a song macro gets is negligible and not worth crippling one legit player. Honestly who cares? I don't. Also using the ingame bind and alias system in an intelligent way is something that should be applauded and supported anyway. Yeah I get it's a pretty hilarious oversight or calculated side-effect that macros render a core Bard mechanic useless, but I would always prefer rebalancing or rethinking the class instead of doing the quick and dirty approach by incorporating random delays.
I get this message all the time for different songs. It killed the class for me. You also have to consider that mapping the buttons in a helpful way isn't always that easy. I personally am left-handed and have mapped all major stuff to the numpad. I cannot play songs and move / dodge at the same time because of my standard layout. Even if, the wasd and then play songs 1-9 isn't great either. Sure it gets better with practise, but I think many moved to macros not because they wanted a gameplay advantage, but because the general song design is inherently flawed and macros the easy way out of this mess.
Ideally, nobody who wasn't macroing would ever see the "you must wait longer" message. I don't know if that's something I can entirely fix (it seems to be entangled in with netlag in some weird ways I don't 100% understand yet), but I'm taking a look. Maybe it's something I can at least improve a bit.
As a question that might help me address this: do people (who aren't macro'ing) find that they see the "wait longer" message more often on easier/shorter songs like Blaze Flamenco? Or do they see the message more often on harder/longer songs like Ballad of the Hero? Or does it not make a difference?
On console (ps4), and therefore not macroing, I get the "must wait longer" on pretty much everything, and as another has noted, I'm also not super co-ordinated and playing songs quickly. I've even seen the "must wait longer" message on my R1 quickplay slot (Blaze Flamenco).
If the "fix" ends up being a total removal so as to not "punish" those who are macro-ing, my personal opinion is "so what?". Let them macro their songs. If, at the end of a dungeon or trial, a bard has higher DPS or heals on the chart because they macro, that's actually of benefit to the team. This culture of "I MUST TOP THE CHART" is ridiculous. More / faster damage and heals by anyone on the team helps improve the chance of the teams success, so why hinder it?
Once you play enough Bard and start getting used to the inputs, you can quickly input the songs by muscle memory alone.
This is absolutely not the case for everyone. We probably shouldn't make blanket statements like this. For many people (the majority) inputting the button presses quickly and accurately enough for any kind of serious game play is not going to be possible.
I feel like the button pressing aspect is the main reason why Bard will never become a popular class. And why, since the Bard was introduced in nearly daily play, I have only ever been grouped with two other Bard healers (vs countless other classes) and both used key binds.
Let's not further limit accessibility to this already difficult class to play by taking away tools that for many people simply allow them to play a class they otherwise wouldn't be able to.
For the people who can play the class with the button presses, wear that like a badge of honor. But, let's not let this become a situation where we are asking for accessibility to be removed because we don't use/can't access a certain feature.
If anything, I feel like it would be more productive to ask for more accessibility and ease of use features, so we can bring more Bards into the fold.
Accessibility: Bards should absolutely be viable at all levels of content when appropriately geared and skilled, even when someone primarily uses quickslots or other such automation, for example someone with limited movement or coordination due to a disability or injury. In late end-game content, it might need a high level of skill and experience to get around not being able to manually perform songs quickly, such as knowing how best to use quickplay slots, Delayed Play, Encore, making use of long phase transitions or gaps in mechanics to play songs when needed. But very important is not to bar anyone out of any game content based on a disability or injury that can reasonably be accomodated.
Incentive to take on challenge: Playing a song manually generally requires more effort, time investment, and skill, and should have some gameplay benefit from doing so. As mentioned before, said extra benefit should not be needed for adequate performance and successful participation in all game content. However, there should be advantages that are sufficient to motivate people to engage with manual play (otherwise why have manual play at all).
Problem 1. The incentive to take on this challenge is zero because although there are gameplay benefits to manually playing songs, using the in-game keybinds allows players to automate songs and receive the benefits intended for people playing the song manually.
Problem 2. I don't use the keybinds or macros, but I run into the "You must wait longer after playing a song" *constantly* (virtually every time) in all sorts of situations, because I do play the songs fairly quickly. It has made me not engage much in dungeons or other AOE group content because while the other DPS kill a group of mobs, casting multiple encounters each, I am just standing there watching the "You must wait longer" message in the meantime. Even in solo content, though I don't have any time pressure on dealing damage, it's still frustrating. It's almost like I have some gear that says "Playing a song dazes you for 2 seconds."
Problem 3. There is a variable, unpredictable delay at times when hitting Tab to enter performance mode. When I'm trying to play quickly and efficiently, I start inputting notes as soon as I hit Tab, but sometimes the first 1-3 notes won't register due to the delay. I then have to identify what happened and backtrack and try again, going slowly the second time. I tend to be a sweaty DPS and I aim high - I'm going to considerable effort in developing my skill and timing to shave fractions of a second off of song casts, just as I would casting a series of encounters without unnecessary dead time between animations. Instead, I'm ending up taking more than twice as much time casting the song again.
FYI, this is a typical kind of situation for me. I jump in, manually play the song, and click four times before I can at-will. The delay is actually about as long as it takes for me to actually input the song in the first place. It feels really clunky and gets frustrating, especially since it happens to me on virtually every song performance, even soloing casually.
I think if the delay was timed from entering performance to casting the song it would be fine. Reduce the delay by time spent in performance mode between first input to cast. For blaze flamenco, 1s delay max, for something tough to play like ballad 1.5-2s. I think it makes sense since most classes do have this long cast times.
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mamalion1234Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,415Arc User
edited April 2022
in this case i played blaze flamenco manual and i tried to cast stacatto att will failing 5 times.
[4/6 21:16][Combat (Self)]You must wait longer after playing a song
[4/6 21:16][Combat (Self)]You must wait longer after playing a song
[4/6 21:16][Combat (Self)]You must wait longer after playing a song
[4/6 21:16][Combat (Self)]You must wait longer after playing a song
[4/6 21:16][Combat (Self)]You must wait longer after playing a song
Problem 2. I don't use the keybinds or macros, but I run into the "You must wait longer after playing a song" *constantly* (virtually every time) in all sorts of situations, because I do play the songs fairly quickly. It has made me not engage much in dungeons or other AOE group content because while the other DPS kill a group of mobs, casting multiple encounters each, I am just standing there watching the "You must wait longer" message in the meantime. Even in solo content, though I don't have any time pressure on dealing damage, it's still frustrating. It's almost like I have some gear that says "Playing a song dazes you for 2 seconds."
It's one thing to talk about not using key binds when playing a Songblade, they only have to play a few songs here and there and far less is tied to actual manual input. The only thing at stake when they fail to play their song is doing a little less DPS.
When a Minstrel fails a song, it's likely to be a player dying or worse. And numerous vital elements of the class are lost, it's hard enough maintaining Storyteller stacks as it is, not to mention the far more complicated Gambler rotations.
Healers are already looking at around 2 seconds or less to react between someone getting hit and someone being killed. And that is while fighting latency and other factors. If this game involved slower gameplay or combat where death in two hits was rare versus the norm, I might agree. But, that is not the case in this game.
If key binds are removed, we're only going to lose Minstrels and/or push people to macros. And what is the benefit aside from pride? I should think the goal here is to get more players playing Bard, specifically Minstrel, and remove the pre-existing stigma that having a Minstrel is a liability versus a benefit.
The issue of the delay can be fixed without removing key binds.
I think what you have to do is rebalance the class around the fact that all songs are essentially in quickplay slots. Rename the quickplay slots to song slots, add an additional one and only allow songs in those slots to be played. This way the Performance Mode lets you switch between three encounters and three songs, all of which are automatically played. You of course need to re-balance some powers because the ability to manually play songs is no longer present.
I get this might be a little disappointing because we already have few classes with a distinct skill element and manually playing songs is one, but as shown in this thread the idea is deeply flawed and I think cannot be salvaged. The Bard still has a unique mechanic and the free-play mode, which is a tool you can play around with.
You could also try some timing-related skill elements related to Songs to replace the manual play benefits.
I think you can try to fix bard as much as you want, but with the delay, frustration is still going to be there. If a class is not fluid it isn't fun.
An easy fix for that would be: If you want to introduce a delay for songs, you can restrict ONLY the use of songs. You can still use at will, dailies and encounters but u can't spam songs, if that's what you want. I am against both delays but it would fix part of the problem
When you play the at will con moto (Tailwind Mambo) the animation and the visual effect are not synchronized and sometimes you do not see the wind effect, it's a mess.
1
mamalion1234Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,415Arc User
What if, when you played a song, it played and animated the notes automatically, and if the player wishes, they can gain additional or increased effect by playing along with the song? This would have the following effects: * Song has a fixed cast time that can be balanced effectively with other powers * Song is cast quickly enough to respond to combat conditions, whether the person struggles with manual play or not * Song does not need keybinds to be performed in an appropriate time frame * Song is not played in virtually an instant like a macro * No delay needs to be incorporated to fight macros, it is built in to the "cast time" of the song * Player is rewarded by taking on the additional challenge of "playing along"
Note: this doesn't have to be Guitar Hero, or have complicated timing or input detection. All you'd have to do is at the end of the cast, check to see if the player's input during the cast time includes a sequence of notes that matches the song.
What if, when you played a song, it played and animated the notes automatically, and if the player wishes, they can gain additional or increased effect by playing along with the song? This would have the following effects: * Song has a fixed cast time that can be balanced effectively with other powers * Song is cast quickly enough to respond to combat conditions, whether the person struggles with manual play or not * Song does not need keybinds to be performed in an appropriate time frame * Song is not played in virtually an instant like a macro * No delay needs to be incorporated to fight macros, it is built in to the "cast time" of the song * Player is rewarded by taking on the additional challenge of "playing along"
Note: this doesn't have to be Guitar Hero, or have complicated timing or input detection. All you'd have to do is at the end of the cast, check to see if the player's input during the cast time includes a sequence of notes that matches the song.
a) This doesn't solve accessibility issues at all. Like you said, this isn't Guitar Hero. The feature simply isn't working. b) You can still macro it.
Comments
You guys should identify all the easy bugs and rush them out. The Bard came out in June.... 10 months ago, we shouldnt have to wait longer for easy bug fixes
For the delay after manually playing a song it's really annoying , I'm a PC player and In real life I play Guitar, So I manually play song very fast with my left hand. To avoid the delay I'm forced to play 3-4 note wait and play the last 3-4 note. I should not be punished for player that want to use macro. Playing song manually very fast should be an advantage for player that have those skills.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
* Powers that affect multiple friendlies and currently refer to "nearby allies" will be switched to work on non-party members. Note this includes most heals. This would be a buff to roughly 8-10 powers.
* Powers that affect multiple friendlies but specifically refer to "party members" will be left as-is (party members only). Most of these seem to be party members for a good reason: for example, Voice Throw lets you shed aggro onto a nearby tank, which really you should be doing on your own tank, not some other group's (that would just be rude). Or Defender's Minuet, which heals a single nearby party member. If you can only affect one player, better it be a party member, because those are the people whose health you are monitoring and you are responsible for.
There might be an exception or two to the above, if I find something that seems like it needs special treatment, but the above is my basic plan.
The "you must wait longer" was meant as an anti-macro thing. Definitely NOT meant to be a normalization or equalization. I agree that would be annoying.
The Freddie/Sal thing was meant just to be about AP generation. You get 22AP/sec, and I was trying to explain why that was OK. You get 22 AP/sec across the game, so having it be that way for bard songs I thought was reasonable, for the reasons I explained. But it's not part of some overall normalization thing; it's really just about that specific AP calculation.
Ideally, nobody who wasn't macroing would ever see the "you must wait longer" message. I don't know if that's something I can entirely fix (it seems to be entangled in with netlag in some weird ways I don't 100% understand yet), but I'm taking a look. Maybe it's something I can at least improve a bit.
As a question that might help me address this: do people (who aren't macro'ing) find that they see the "wait longer" message more often on easier/shorter songs like Blaze Flamenco? Or do they see the message more often on harder/longer songs like Ballad of the Hero? Or does it not make a difference?
I don’t macro my songs and experience the delay with both easier to play and more difficult to play songs, but it would be nice to hear from others.
The experience is actually so bad for me between the delay entering Performance Mode, playing a song, and having to wait after exiting Performance mode, that I avoid playing Ballads altogether and focus on elemental songs.
Game design currently revolves around short periods of combat windows where much of your precious time healing or doing damage is consumed with the ‘clunkiness’ of the Performance mode/UI. Personally, this takes the immersion away for me as I feel the Bard is a precision-based class (and should be ‘rewarded’ as such).
Ruins the fun having that delay there where I can't do anything but watch the toon go through the animation as he/she gets slammed by attackers.
Once you play enough Bard and start getting used to the inputs, you can quickly input the songs by muscle memory alone.
Based on what you say, you seem to understand the issues with the whole netlag, interfacing and general clunkiness of the current bard performance. Whatever constrain exists to create that wait pop up, why not remove it completely? Let the people playing with macro do their game, it's their lose for not enjoying the class. As someone said, performance is not infinite, so yes they might get the advantage of doing something extra, hitting 1 more at will, but we get more AP from that song. Your idea and fix around AP is already providing a great trade-off between speeding up a song or taking your time for the benefit of the AP.
For me, as for many more, the bard is currently choking at every scenario that becomes a bit intense and hectic, where you would want your toon to excel. Hitting the performance, not popping up, hitting it again, disappearing, waiting to make sure that it's stable, hitting it again, playing a song and waiting..... If you can remove as much of that pain as you can everyone will appreciate it. And the day that the bard becomes so overpowered because of it that clerics starts stripping their toons to heal with bard, then you can gradually re-introduce it.
Great work, and thank you for the communication line.
Absolutely love what you're doing here, thank you!
Pointing out below current descriptions for reference, without indicating if they are working as described:
- Arpeggio = target ally
- Arpeggio Fortissimio (Class Feature) = allies within 40'
- Aurora Fantasia = nearby allies
- Aurora Finale = nearby allies
- Curtain Call = nearby allies
- Defender's Minuet = nearby party member
- Gambler (Feat) = nearby allies
- Inspiration = nearest party member
- Mystifying Strikes (Class Feature) = the player who triggered the effect
- Rejuvenating Carol = nearby allies
- Reprised Carol: Enhance = nearby allies
- Reprised Carol: Recovery = nearby allies
- Sheltering Etude = self and all nearby party members
- Starstruck (Class Feature) = teammate
- Storyteller (Feat) = party members within 50'
My opinions:
- "Party" should be defined as up to 10 players (i.e. Trials), not capped at your immediate 5-person group.
- Defender's Minuet = Should remain your party. If the Bard needs to focus the Tank or other specific target, the class has the Serenade Encounter. Hypothetically, if Defender's Minuet applied to non-party nearby allies in open world content and you are rolling solo, it would be frustrating to heal others when you're attempting to heal yourself. No changes needed.
- Reprised Carol: Recovery = "Shield Absorbs damage. Regenerates every 5 seconds." This ability is incredibly over-tuned; however, it's difficult to proc, can be Performance-intensive at 5 stacks, and is more balanced in Dungeons/Trials/Skirmishes. What I feel should be avoided is the ability to apply to all allies in range. Imagine a massive dragon fight with 25 people in the instance and you have Bards popping off shields equivalent to 50% of HP bars for everyone that regenerate every 5 seconds. Sorry, fellow Bards, but I have to be fair, that's a bit overpowered! Keep Reprised Carols functioning as-is, applying only to your party (current description indirectly mentions nearby allies).
- Sheltering Etude = May Sheltering Etude apply to all nearby allies instead of being limited to your party? If that's a hard sell, entertain a 10 or 15 person/nearby allies cap?
- Storyteller (Feat) = Only allow stacks to apply to your party and not nearby allies. No changes needed.
I was arguing in another thread that if you build a system around automation you're almost always on the wrong path. This is your quod erat demonstrandum. The gameplay advantage a song macro gets is negligible and not worth crippling one legit player. Honestly who cares? I don't. Also using the ingame bind and alias system in an intelligent way is something that should be applauded and supported anyway. Yeah I get it's a pretty hilarious oversight or calculated side-effect that macros render a core Bard mechanic useless, but I would always prefer rebalancing or rethinking the class instead of doing the quick and dirty approach by incorporating random delays.
I get this message all the time for different songs. It killed the class for me. You also have to consider that mapping the buttons in a helpful way isn't always that easy. I personally am left-handed and have mapped all major stuff to the numpad. I cannot play songs and move / dodge at the same time because of my standard layout. Even if, the wasd and then play songs 1-9 isn't great either. Sure it gets better with practise, but I think many moved to macros not because they wanted a gameplay advantage, but because the general song design is inherently flawed and macros the easy way out of this mess.
If the "fix" ends up being a total removal so as to not "punish" those who are macro-ing, my personal opinion is "so what?". Let them macro their songs. If, at the end of a dungeon or trial, a bard has higher DPS or heals on the chart because they macro, that's actually of benefit to the team. This culture of "I MUST TOP THE CHART" is ridiculous. More / faster damage and heals by anyone on the team helps improve the chance of the teams success, so why hinder it?
I feel like the button pressing aspect is the main reason why Bard will never become a popular class. And why, since the Bard was introduced in nearly daily play, I have only ever been grouped with two other Bard healers (vs countless other classes) and both used key binds.
Let's not further limit accessibility to this already difficult class to play by taking away tools that for many people simply allow them to play a class they otherwise wouldn't be able to.
For the people who can play the class with the button presses, wear that like a badge of honor. But, let's not let this become a situation where we are asking for accessibility to be removed because we don't use/can't access a certain feature.
If anything, I feel like it would be more productive to ask for more accessibility and ease of use features, so we can bring more Bards into the fold.
Incentive to take on challenge: Playing a song manually generally requires more effort, time investment, and skill, and should have some gameplay benefit from doing so. As mentioned before, said extra benefit should not be needed for adequate performance and successful participation in all game content. However, there should be advantages that are sufficient to motivate people to engage with manual play (otherwise why have manual play at all).
Problem 1. The incentive to take on this challenge is zero because although there are gameplay benefits to manually playing songs, using the in-game keybinds allows players to automate songs and receive the benefits intended for people playing the song manually.
Problem 2. I don't use the keybinds or macros, but I run into the "You must wait longer after playing a song" *constantly* (virtually every time) in all sorts of situations, because I do play the songs fairly quickly. It has made me not engage much in dungeons or other AOE group content because while the other DPS kill a group of mobs, casting multiple encounters each, I am just standing there watching the "You must wait longer" message in the meantime. Even in solo content, though I don't have any time pressure on dealing damage, it's still frustrating. It's almost like I have some gear that says "Playing a song dazes you for 2 seconds."
Problem 3. There is a variable, unpredictable delay at times when hitting Tab to enter performance mode. When I'm trying to play quickly and efficiently, I start inputting notes as soon as I hit Tab, but sometimes the first 1-3 notes won't register due to the delay. I then have to identify what happened and backtrack and try again, going slowly the second time. I tend to be a sweaty DPS and I aim high - I'm going to considerable effort in developing my skill and timing to shave fractions of a second off of song casts, just as I would casting a series of encounters without unnecessary dead time between animations. Instead, I'm ending up taking more than twice as much time casting the song again.
[4/6 21:16][Combat (Self)]You must wait longer after playing a song
[4/6 21:16][Combat (Self)]You must wait longer after playing a song
[4/6 21:16][Combat (Self)]You must wait longer after playing a song
[4/6 21:16][Combat (Self)]You must wait longer after playing a song
[4/6 21:16][Combat (Self)]You must wait longer after playing a song
When a Minstrel fails a song, it's likely to be a player dying or worse. And numerous vital elements of the class are lost, it's hard enough maintaining Storyteller stacks as it is, not to mention the far more complicated Gambler rotations.
Healers are already looking at around 2 seconds or less to react between someone getting hit and someone being killed. And that is while fighting latency and other factors. If this game involved slower gameplay or combat where death in two hits was rare versus the norm, I might agree. But, that is not the case in this game.
If key binds are removed, we're only going to lose Minstrels and/or push people to macros. And what is the benefit aside from pride? I should think the goal here is to get more players playing Bard, specifically Minstrel, and remove the pre-existing stigma that having a Minstrel is a liability versus a benefit.
The issue of the delay can be fixed without removing key binds.
I get this might be a little disappointing because we already have few classes with a distinct skill element and manually playing songs is one, but as shown in this thread the idea is deeply flawed and I think cannot be salvaged. The Bard still has a unique mechanic and the free-play mode, which is a tool you can play around with.
You could also try some timing-related skill elements related to Songs to replace the manual play benefits.
An easy fix for that would be: If you want to introduce a delay for songs, you can restrict ONLY the use of songs. You can still use at will, dailies and encounters but u can't spam songs, if that's what you want. I am against both delays but it would fix part of the problem
* Song has a fixed cast time that can be balanced effectively with other powers
* Song is cast quickly enough to respond to combat conditions, whether the person struggles with manual play or not
* Song does not need keybinds to be performed in an appropriate time frame
* Song is not played in virtually an instant like a macro
* No delay needs to be incorporated to fight macros, it is built in to the "cast time" of the song
* Player is rewarded by taking on the additional challenge of "playing along"
Note: this doesn't have to be Guitar Hero, or have complicated timing or input detection. All you'd have to do is at the end of the cast, check to see if the player's input during the cast time includes a sequence of notes that matches the song.
b) You can still macro it.