>Something unique is about to be removed.

Unfortunately, unique often means "poorly balanced" and "full of bugs."

---

Weapons for Sale:
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Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
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Combat Balance List:
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While I'm sorry you feel that way, I urge you to give it a chance.

Mechanically Enchantes faced three giant problems:

The first was that you could only use one at a time. This meant that even if we made more of them, either they generally weren't used or they just replaced one that was used - this also caused plenty of balance issues, but I'm not going to get into those here.

Secondly, you were dealing with a system roughly the size of the entire magic system - that only applied to one guild. From a developmental standpoint this is basically a kiss of death.

Thirdly, the way the interacted with the lore skillset was problematic at best - you essentially had skills doing things they shouldn't be doing.

We went to great lengths to keep Bards feeling like Bards when redoing magic 3.0 while still solving the above problems. Is the mojo system where it should be at? No, and that's on me. Is the performance skill where we want it? No - but I think you'll really like what Socharis and I have in store for it.

In the end I don't think the soul of a guild, so to speak, rests in its mechanics but in its players. Is a Bard a Bard because they type sing instead of prep? Or is a Bard a Bard because of how they act, the stories they tell, the plays they perform, the ladies they charm and so forth?

-Raesh

"Ever notice that B.A.'s flavor text swells in direct proportion to how much one of our characters is getting screwed?" - Brian Van Hoose

>I hate to say it but I don't know a single bard in my circle of friends who is looking forward to Saturday. Something unique is about to be removed.

And I don't know a single bard outside you and who you're puppetting for, that is NOT excited about the changes.

I don't get how going from 'sing' to 'prep' is an issue. It's cosmetic beyond belief. And the amazing playability options this opens up, as well as the simple new cache of spells you guys get, are mind blowing. I strongly encourage you guys to open up a little. The suite of abilities bards are getting is nothing short of amazing. They're 2nd or 3rd in the game.

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Adding nothing to the conversation since 1834.

>>I don't know a single bard in my circle of friends who is looking forward to Saturday.

Ignoring PREPARE/CASTing of cyclic spells, what is the main concern that you and your circle of friends are finding unattractive about Bards in 3.0?

I'm genuinely curious, because Bards seem to be a mega-improvement in 3.0 over 2.0.

~ Leilond
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/ss1shadow/Leilond_Progression.jpg

>>GRIM45

lol yeah it's going to happen regardless, I'm just trying to wrap my head around why there is supposedly a dislike with the direction Bards are taking in 3.0 among a particular circle of Bards.

~ Leilond
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/ss1shadow/Leilond_Progression.jpg

>>lol yeah it's going to happen regardless, I'm just trying to wrap my head around why there is supposedly a dislike with the direction Bards are taking in 3.0 among a particular circle of Bards.

Simply put, people are resistant to change. Regardless of it being a good or bad change, its still a change. A lot of the folks who I've spoke with that are freaking out of looking at what seems to be an extremely broad sweeping change to a system they're comfortable with. Taken piecemeal, each change isn't very dramatic, but coming at the whole pile, especially now with a clear and hard deadline of release staring them in the eye is I imagine very frightening.

For myself, I could take the broad view and see that many of these changes for 3.0 were absolutely needed, however I can be just as guilty about resistance as anyone else. Knowing I dislike having to adapt I deliberately logged into test for hours, over and over, until I'd grown comfortable with the new systems. Once I had my main settled, I started trying my alts. I'll admit, on my bard I had a series of about 20 macros for starting/mana changing/stopping various enchantes that I'll miss for their ease of use, but once I messed with bardic magic I couldn't help but be impressed. It just took time, and patience.

Samsaren

>>lol yeah it's going to happen regardless, I'm just trying to wrap my head around why there is supposedly a dislike with the direction Bards are taking in 3.0 among a particular circle of Bards.

Overall, I love the direction the bard guild is going. However, I must express dissatisfaction/sadness with the current choices for lower level damage spells. As a 40th circle Bard I have Breath of Storms.. and that's it. I'm losing Chorus of Madmen, Phoenix's Pyre and Abandoned Heart. Now true, MADM and ABH weren't damage songs in 2.0 - but I could [and did!] use them. Now they are impossible for me to cast. This makes me sad - especially Pyre.

I'll be the first to admit that if I had never played a Bard before, not having access to them wouldn't really bother me. But this isn't a "I don't have it now, but I'll get it later"; it's a "It's being taken away from me and given to the big kids". A childish metaphor for a childish feeling, but it's there.

Offhand, I'd guess that's where a fair bit of the angst is coming from.


Other than that, the biggest changes that I had to come to terms with were PREP/CAST [not too bad, but PREP/auto-start would be really nice] and cambrinth's new INVOKE mechanic. I love what FOCUS has become, but teaching my brain to use INVOKE will be a trip.

Buy Genie front=end. Use the alias function to map sing to prep. Then sing away your magic!

______
Kertig Heart Magdar Bluefletch, Mechanical Lore Grand Master of M'Riss

<<But, you can also take advantage of Will of Winter and turn BoS into a whole new damage type.>>


she posted she's 40th circle. I doubt very much if she will be able to cast will of winter.


<sorcery>

Those are by no means easy to cast either.plus you need to have a feat to try to avoid blowing your arms off.



<<The real thing DR needs is to get out there to the kids who actually read books.>>

>she posted she's 40th circle. I doubt very much if she will be able to cast will of winter.

Huh? Did the difficulty for WILL change? I'm 40th circle in plat and can cast WILL no problem. Have been able to for awhile. Last check I could pump at least 210 mana into it.

>Abandon Heart, Pyre, and soon to be Chorus are POWERFUL spells. But I'm going to also try and balance them out so they don't all >stack up at once - we'll see how that all plays one.

Oh yes, I understand the reasoning and motivation behind it. That's why I was saying the emotion was a childish one. Also, to be fair, I consider 2.0 PYRE to be a TM spell. :)

> Consider, however, that before 3.0 Bards had no TM spells. That means BoS is infinite % increase ;) (And there are 1, hopefully > 2, more lower end TM spells planned for post 3.0).

WTB a lower-end AOE cyclic TM spell. Or maybe an AOE cyclic TM-based stamina-sapper.

> Buy Genie front=end. Use the alias function to map sing to prep. Then sing away your magic!

Doesn't handle the auto-start mechanic. :( Triggers would be a start, but are too fragile (break on RT, etc). TBH, after a few weeks of casting cyclics, I'm not going to be as concerned about this one. More just something to get used to. The Bard cyclics still have great atmospheric pulse. +1 to the conversion team for keeping them feeling pretty musical.

> Will of Winter

Good call, I had forgotten that it affected BoS. I also haven't taken the time to play with ritual spells because learning how to use/where to carry the ritual foci didn't excite me. I'll get around to it.

> Strange Arrow and other scrolls

YMMV, but throughout my DR career and across all my characters I've had horrible luck finding scrolls. I've found a grand total of 5 scrolls in nearly 15 years (Two STRA, one Sever Thread, one Air Bubble, and one Darkness scroll). I'm hoping that, at least at first, scroll drop-rate could be increased. Or perhaps the runestones and spell scrolls in shops could be made a priority to update after release.

>>I'm hoping that, at least at first, scroll drop-rate could be increased. Or perhaps the runestones and spell scrolls in shops could be made a priority to update after release.

I don't think it necessarily happened yet (or at least not yet Platside) but I do believe there is an intent to make scrolls (and their usage) a lot more commonplace/appealing in 3.0, and part of that includes more stores selling more scrolls and/or better drop rates.

---

The teeth lands a solid (5/23) hit that pokes the teeth into Turul's rear end (more embarrassing than painful!).

Just to be clear - I'm 'puppeting' for are friends that don't play to circle or to be powerful. They were playing as bards who are now mages. Hell, I'll admit they're more powerful myself. I dragged her out with me to play with some mobs and after spending 15 minutes mechanically explaining to her how mages function, she was extremely solid. Granted I was reading the chart to figure out what everything did but seriously.

Can you expect a player that spent over a decade having to actually use an instrument to make his or her magic work not to react like they were gutted when they wake up and and have to prep a spell and cast it? And that their instruments are basically dust collectors now?


I realize I am coming off as melodramatic here and part of it is just being upset at seeing them upset. I deleted the next four or five lines because I know how hard you guys (Raesh and Socharis and the rest of the developers) work and I'm trying to find a good way to say it. I guess this is what I'd like to say. Give us an idea of your vision for the Bard guild in six months? Is the state they're in right now a resting block because of the rest of 3.0? Please, tell me instruments are going to matter for more than building performance skill again?


I want to say one more thing and this is directly to Raesh: I'm not accusing you of not caring and I hope you don't take it that way. I'm sure you sat there trying to figure out what direction you wanted to go and came to the conclusion that the only way to make it work was the one you took. That is one of the main reasons why I posed my questions above. Please realize I am absolutely amazed with what you did with magic as a team with the other developers and through your own work.

PS: Get rid of the tracing an arcane sigil thing by Saturday and I'll even give you a cookie :) As a base prep for bards its kinda silly, no?

> Consider, however, that before 3.0 Bards had no TM spells.

I appreciate this acknowledgment of how awful Pyre 2.0 was.

>Can you expect a player that spent over a decade having to actually use an instrument to make his or her magic work

Except no? Wasn't drums the only spell that required an instrument?

Change is hard. But required to continue existing.

Not playing 'to circle' or whatever isn't really here or there, when discussing mechanics. It's a sympathy plea.

---

Adding nothing to the conversation since 1834.

>>Wait, I even have a suggestion for the prep:
>>Takes a deep breath and begins to (sing/chant) to him/her(self).

This is actually an amaaaazing suggestion IMO, and solves the only annoyance I've had with Bards in 3.0 -- Which is the act of tracing sigils and gesturing in order to begin a song enchante.

If we had different PREPARE messaging for our cyclic spells(enchantes) and CASTing these cyclic spells didn't display the "You gesture." messaging to the Bard or people in the room, but instead just displayed the messaging for the beginning of the song it would be a beautiful, beautiful thing.

It would end up looking something like the below:

---

> prep care
Since you're not feeding enough power into the spell pattern to make it coherent, you quickly work your way to the minimum required.

You begin to sound the beginning of the Caress of the Sun spell.
>

>
You feel fully prepared to cast your spell.
> cast

With a sharp cut to your voice, you begin to chant the rhythm that heralds the introduction to Caress of the Sun.

~ Leilond
http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h307/ss1shadow/Leilond_Progression.jpg

> Leilond's suggestion

That would be amazing, and would go a looong way to removing the "I'm a mage" feel.

I posted this elsewhere, but honestly bards have in-game actual lore history of having massive changes to their magic, connection to Aether, etc...

Pretending this is jarring IC means they don't read our own guild history.

Player of Ryken
---
"Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon." ~ Doug Larson

AIM - RykenDR

I know people that feel this way, and I know I felt really apprehensive when I first went into Test and started fiddling around...there was a lot of "what the heck??" but the more I tested, the more I realized the potential that this change represents.

Sure this weekend is going to be hectic, but we have had months to prepare (dare I say years?) I know I am one of those Bards that never trained Arcana, Target, or Mech...until I knew things were changing. I have been listening to the same classes for what seems like forever.

Keep playing around in Test, and once the weekend comes, take a deep breath and start playing around. I would bet that the more people get used to this system, the more they are going to love it. Just being able to have 3 or 4 incredibly useful Enchantes on me is amazing enough...let alone things like Ritual spells, etc.

I feel utterly, completely overwhelmed by all the changes to the Bard Guild.

Of turning Bards into Mages.

While still basically agreeing that development wise it was necessary to change. While NOT saying that we don't think Raesh has done a lot of work, or good work, or anything at all about not appreciating him.

I think everyone being all like you are a whiny b* for complaining is not productive. Or saying anyone is being all emo and childish.

It is HARD for something you have breathed and lived and UNDERSTOOD since 1997 to be completely, utterly changed.

Sorry if it takes time to adjust. If it is so overwhelming that it takes a bit of time to have someone show you how to cast spells instead of sing, mechanics wise.

To then go to forums and try to coherently express how lost you feel and basically be then insulted and called a baby for just being overwhelmed by the change.

To not feel cheated that you haven't had a way or reason to train TM for your ENTIRE life (ig) guild wise, and then suddenly you have to back train it a huge amount since it doesn't meet any sort of grandfathering overall because your other Magic ranks take up the 5 required magic skills. Oh well.. don't worry, you can back train that quick. Um.. but I shouldn't HAVE to back train it.

And while may people or guilds have felt or even rightly felt they had a lack of development over the long life they had in DR, overall Bards are entitled to feel this way, and feel like they got kind of ... well ... we will get you eventually.

And here is the big... eventually.

And while the developments are good, and going to be good... there is still the feeling of complete, utter loss to a basic understanding of how you existed for your entire life in DR. At least for me.

Linett