<<To be honest it might be something we talked about earlier, but we've decided against it at this point. It all kind of becomes moot when you consider the grandfathering of the Performing skill anyway, though.

It is not a moot point when I have 1250+ vocals and kept on training it because that was stated to factor into performance many many months ago. My bard is 104th so there is a HUGE difference between grandfathering me based on circle vs how I have been told and planned for all this time. Please please reconsider because that is a BRUTAL change right near the finish line.

-P

Luck is nothing more than opportunity meeting preparation.

And don't forget, 1250+ ranks going into the bonus pool means a one heck of a lot of bits available for experiance doubling...

>I totally agree. That's the state they're in now, but the goal is to fix all of the skills so that they don't suck the way those two do. That's something that we'll do individually for skills after this whole overhaul is done.

I like that goal, and I hate to sound like I'm complaining when I've read over just how much effort went into coming up with these new requirements across all of the guilds.

I found an old(er) post listing the top trained skills of Bards who responded in the forum:

1- Vocals (Which is entirely going away, not into Performance, but into bonus pool)
2- Music Theory (Becoming Bardic Lore, but no Guild Requirement . . . yet)
3- Primary Magic (Staying around, but not for Guild Requirements)
4- Harness (Folding into Attunement)
5- Strings (Folding into Performance)
6- Appraisal (Sticking around)
7- Percussions (Folding into Performance)
8- Winds (Folding into Performance)
9- Teaching (Folding into Scholarship)
10- Power Perception (Folding into Attunement)
11- Scholarship (Folding into Scholarship)
12- Parry (Sticking around)
13- Medium Edge (Folding into Small Edge)
14- Mechanical Lore (One day will be split up . . .)
15- Evasion (Sticking around)

So it seems that most people will be fulfilling the Lore requirements with Appraisal and Scholarship (and Tactics), at least to start. We'll see how crafting develops.

~~
Lupdels

>Sure but having worked hard and thinking you will have all that in Performance and then going back down to 500 ranks instead with a bonus pool and the knowledge I have to do it all over again is quite depressing.

Honestly between hum and enchantes, I'm not sure the argument about vocals being 'hard' to learn holds any water. What would hold water is slacking on training other skills because of a perception that vocals would go into performance, but if the GMs never flat out said that, not much argument can be made.

---

Let's save us all some time: I'm a troll who rarely has anything helpful. There.

>>>Honestly between hum and enchantes, I'm not sure the argument about vocals being 'hard' to learn holds any water. What would hold water is slacking on training other skills because of a perception that vocals would go into performance, but if the GMs never flat out said that, not much argument can be made.

Here's what I could find using the intuitive search methods available. Basically, for over a year bards were told Vocal would count for Performance. Seems pretty flat out to me. As far as I could find, the first post that said otherwise was the "Here's the new requirements" post.

Granted, decisions get made and then remade. I'm not particularly upset about the way it ended up, but I can see where people who based their training choices based on what was communicated have justification for feeling like they had a bait-and-switch pulled on them.


DR-Sochris - 12/28/2010 http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/Abilities,%20Skills%20and%20Magic/The%20Experience%20System/view?beginning_post_id=1&ending_post_id=2529&page=18#

The notion of disposing of Vocals into the overflow pool entirely is interesting, but it likely won't happen. Before humming people trained it legitimately (if annoyingly), and to not count that as performing wouldn't make sense in that context.

DR-RAESH - 6/30/11
http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/Abilities,%20Skills%20and%20Magic/The%20Experience%20System/view?beginning_post_id=1&ending_post_id=2529&page=41#

Humming is incredibly separate from Bardic Lore (And my apologies if I've not given a good enough definition of the skill, the gooey lore wrapping around the mechanical need hadn't quite yelled yet when the skill list was announced. I'll make sure to get something clearer out before we start the transition).

That said, you're right. There is a level of abstraction going on here -- and while I agree it's somewhat odd that humming is the most viable way to train vocals for most people as opposed to singing -- it is subjected to the same restrictions singing would be (And most instrument playing is, really, aside from tying your hands up) if that system was fleshed out in the same way.

For now humming will train performance. I do, of course, reserve the right to modify that in the future and am not overly concerned with people training it who aren't actually invested in it between the expansion of lore skills and the TDP changes.


GM-SOCHRIS from the estate holders meeting log 9/28
http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/Estate%20Holders%20of%20Elanthia/General%20Discussions%20-%20Estate%20Holders%20of%20Elanthia/view/1302#

Socharis says, "The other is Performance, which will not be including Vocals for any guild but Bards."

Wow...while I think the new reqs are great and you guys have done a wonderful job with all that you are doing...am I ever screwed :)

Scholarship is like 67 ranks behind...my weapons (1 and 2) both over 30 ranks behind. I have been focusing on the wrong things for training over the past while, ah well.

I'm a bit sad over vocals, and secondary armor as it was no problem for me. I'm also a bit surprised that my magics surpass the reqs by so much.

Two comments:

Why isn't Music Theory being converted to Performance for Bards? Music Theory is the only skill that is literally only trained by Performing music. If any skill in the game should be converted to Performance, it should be MT.

I also don't understand why Music Theory is being converted to Bardic Lore, when Bardic Lore has little to do with playing instruments. You can only train Music Theory by playing an instrument in some manner (straight-play or enchante). How is that a reflection of your knowledge of Bardic Lore?

Thanks!
GENT

p.s. Not trying to sound antagonistic, I'm just tardy to the party on this discussion and haven't really seen the reasoning behind these decisions.

Correct. Musical Theory is going to go into Bardic Lore. It doesn't make perfect sense wrt their function, but mechanically it's the cleanest way to do it. The only other way to do it, really, would be to mash it into your performance skill along with all the instruments (requiring a different calculation for just one guild) and then grandfather bardic lore back up to guild minimums for everyone draining out your bonus pool. Basically a lot more work for more or less the same result (The only real difference is that it may result in your performance skill not shooting up as much as it otherwise would and bardic lore not sitting at the guild minimum for everyone).

-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

> To be honest it might be something we talked about earlier, but we've decided against it at this point. It all kind of becomes moot when you consider the grandfathering of the Performing skill anyway, though.

All of my instruments are past the 150th req, so grandfathering plays no role in this for me. This change is a difference of 370 ranks for me, and now instead of gaining 1000 tdps with the change, I'll be going 2000 into debt.

>The main thing to worry about is figuring out a way to train all of the appropriate skills after they're grandfathered up to your current circle :P

THIS! When I reactivated Lupdels about a year ago he hadn't been dusted off for a year or two. My Appraisal was somehow my highest lore skill. It has been moving ever since, but it's slowly dropped from first to sixth as my music/instrument skills overtake it. I manage to move Scholarship, Teaching, Mechanical Lore, and even Animal Lore (goodbye dear friend) from time to time, but it's not a focus of my current approach.

Under the new requirements I'll have to figure out a way to push Appraisal and Scholarship more than I do now. I think I need to start doing more Recall Runs than I do now. Anyone else have suggestions on how to work this into my Bard's habits?

~~
Lupdels

>2) Scholarship - When playing instruments(if that's your thing) be sure to RECALL HOLIDAY, RECALL IMMORTAL, RECALL FAMOUS and RECALL HERB. These can all be done while you're playing the actual instrument. Find the recalls that yield the most text for you -- The more, the better IMO.

I can never keep straight which ones teach. Does RECALL HERB actually teach anything, or just RECALL HERB <herb/wound>? It doesn't seem like the former does . . .

And is each RECALL on a separate timer for all individual Recalls under that category? So RECALL IMMORTAL TAMSINE and RECALL IMMORTAL HARAWEP are on the same timer, but not RECALL HOLIDAY SHOSANDU?

~~
Lupdels

Heh, just realized that with Vocal folding into the bonus pool and assuming Leilond's conversions are at least close if not correct, 4 of my top 5 skills will be Magic skills (PM, Attunement, Bardic Lore, Warding, and Augmentation).

Betting that's true of a lot of other bards as well. Seems to me that says something about the Lore skill set when a lore-primary guild's highest skills aren't actually in the lore skillset.

watcher of Meigs

>>>>...assuming Leilond's conversions are at least close if not correct...

>>I'm assuming you mean the spreadsheet I posted in the Experience folder. The calculations in there are based off of what was originally posted by Socharis, but that scheme will no longer be used. It has been replaced with a new scheme that is To Be Determined.

Even if the formulas are tweeted slightly, I'd be very surprised if the end result wasn't close to the same.

I don't do tables, so I'll just list what had been the result of past forum surveys of the top skills for Bards: Vocals (Gone), Music Theory (Bardic Theory, but not a requirement), Primary Magic (Not part of future requirements but part of the formula for new magic skills), Harness (Folded into Attunement), Strings (Folded into Performance), Appraisal (Staying), Percussions (Folded into Performance), Winds (Folded into Performance), Teaching (Folded into Scholarship), Power Perception (Attunement), Scholarship (Folded into Scholarship), Parry (Staying), Medium Edge (Folded into Small Edge), Mechanical Lore (Staying but eventually split, which will lower the remaining skills unless you dump everything into one), Evasion (Staying).

So of the top 15, only 10 will still be around. And depending on the precise formulas used for the new magic skills, the fact that Primary Magic and Harness are so high could mean that many of the new magic skills are close to if not higher than our non-Performance lore skills.

I know the formulas will change, but if the formulas don't weigh PM and existing skills heavily I could see all sorts of problems for the Magic Prime Guilds.

I don't have a non-Bard that I keep active, so I can't really comment on how the skill changes will impact other Guilds. But it just seems that given how much our Guild has had to train instruments, any shift that collapses three instrument skills into one and potentially axes another into a bonus pool will really leave us with what I'd call some unbalanced skills for a Lore Primary.

I know what I'll be doing as soon as the switch is made and I have that bonus pool.

~~
Lupdels

>Otherwise I'm going to be tortured with having one magic skill at like 1200 and another magic skill at 800 :(

Admit it, you would love to have to retrain those 400 ranks in a new skill. ;)

<<I don't completely disagree with you. I imagine with the ranks you've got, you're 150+. Let's wait until we have that solution described before getting TOO concerned, because I think for < 150 it works as SCHLOTTD suggests for most people.

I'm actually 104th with that much vocals. I made a decision after hearing your statement to go ahead and press on with Vocals instead of training up instruments in anticipation of 3.0 since it seemed more beneficial. My highest instrument is around 500 ranks so that's a SERIOUS hit to performance when all this time I had planned on what was stated. I can completely sympathize and agree that sometimes decisions may need to be corrected or tweaked but my point is this is a pretty massive change to make so close to the finish line. Would you consider something along the lines with what Leilond proposed to average the two highest of all instruments & vocals?? I would thrilled with just about any formula that allows the weighting of vocals in some fashion so all my work doesn't go to a secondary pool so I have to do more than 50% of my vocals/performance skill all over again. Thanks for listening.


Luck is nothing more than opportunity meeting preparation.

Actually, I would even be fine using the Hiding/Stealth formula. Higher of top 2 instrument skills, no higher than 130% of an instrument skill other than Vocals. This would fix cases where people un-invested in the Performance skill have like 900 Vocals but only 200 ranks in another instrument skill.

Examples...
Person A has 900 Vocals and 200 in the next highest instrument skill. This person would use the higher of either of these 2 skills, up to 130% of the Non-Vocals instrument skill. So since Vocals is way higher we would get 130% x 200 = 260 ranks total in Performance.

Person B has 1250 Vocals and 500 in the next highest instrument skill (Hi PORMITHIUS!). This person would use the higher of either of these 2 skills, up to 130% of the Non-Vocals instrument skill. So since Vocals is way higher we would get 130% x 500 = 650 ranks total in Performance.

Person C has 1000 Vocals and 900 in the next highest instrument skill. This person would use the higher of either of these 2 skills, up to 130% of the Non-Vocals instrument skill. So since Vocals is higher we would get the higher of 130% x 900 = 1170 OR 1000 from Vocals. In this case, this person would get to use the 1000 ranks because he/she is already invested in the instrument system and didn't just use HUM for tdps.

~Leilond
http://tinyurl.com/Leilond-Portrait
http://drzeal.forumotion.com Learn How to PvP!

>>Bards and Vocals

I'll think about a capped maximum type formula, similar to stalking. It's a tough line to walk.

--

"The ninety and nine are with dreams, content but the hope of the world made new, is the hundredth man who is grimly bent on making those dreams come true." -E.A.P.

Yes thank you so much for listening and considering this option.

Luck is nothing more than opportunity meeting preparation.

<<...unless I got my weapon ranks from listening to classes (but why would you do that when combat just provides such better training?).

Because I hate hunting. And weapons is always the thing I need to circle. At one point, all I needed to jump 8 circles was Primary Weapon. Thankfully, a friend of mine who was DR deprived at the time took my bard out and hunted her until she got them. It got my bard those 8 circles and got him his DR fix.

Bard Lydaiva's (and others) player

All I need for the next 39 circles is weapons. But I'm a Barbarian. :P

---

Weapons for Sale:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Caraamon#Wares
Hunta Talna Kortok, built by Gor'Togs, for Gor'Togs
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/caraamon/home.html
Combat Balance List:
http://tinyurl.com/DRBalance