For Severlin: Bard songs

[seph1roth5]

Severlin had mentioned on the recent livestream that he wanted more info on how/why people wanted bard songs to be aoe.

There was a bard song update a few years ago, that created an "aria," for bards, and as they level more stuff gets added to their aria. I believe those re-cast every 60 sec?

Either way, there are still some important buffs that ONLY work when you use inspire courage on a single target. So, while the aria is nice, in raids or halfway difficult content, bards still need to manually buff each person/hireling/whoever.

If there was a way to have a bard use aoe Inspire Courage(I think inspire heroics and competence are part of the aria) and just have it deduct a number of songs equal to targets nearby, that'd be awesome. Sort of like how low level spells such as good hope/haste is 1 target/level and if you have a small horde of a party, people get left out. But there are many effects, such as spellsinger hp/sp heals, bonus ability scores in epics, etc, that specifically are tied to inspire courage.

Maybe give bards a free metamagic of sorts that they can right-click and enable on their song, to increase the number of songs used, such as +5 or 10, and have it be a 30' aoe centered on them? Or just a "Inspire Courage - Mass" that uses more songs, equal to half your level or something, and is aoe.

 

[Eoin]

The ability you are looking for is Bardic Inspiration. The aria is Bardic Ballad (which contains Inspire Courage).

Don't get me wrong, while I enjoy using my mastery of sonic powers to directly inspire my barbarian with death metal, rogue with Mozart, warlock with k-pop, paladin with Nickelback, etc. Sometimes I just want to play some Creedence for everyone, cause that owlbear rug really tied the dungeon together.

(Bardic Inspiration + tumble to break animation cause people will fall asleep or run off + single target buff(s))x12 + aoe buff(s) at the start of a raid and when everyone shrines gets old fairly quickly on raid days.

A Bard Inspiration, Mass feat at like 18 or 20 or or tier 5 spellsinger or cap spellsinger or deep in the Fatesinger ED would be swell. Have it spend 12 songs to buff everyone in the Bardic Ballad range.

 

[ACJ97F]

Maining a Bard, I agree that Spellsinger really should have a top-tier AOE Inspiration for use in Raids. That's the one thing
holding up everyone, trying to play 12 songs. Even if it had a long cooldown like some of the other skills, would be a QOL
change. Right now, it's akin to playing a concert a dozen times before a fight.

Don't get me wrong, the Aria was nice for minor passive buffs, but the "only one person can hear you" needs to go.

 

[Enoach]

Making these AoE I would be willing to even reduce the number of songs available to a bard to compensate (we were using them to buff anyway)

Or a mechanic that spent based on # of party members in range.
I will say that what I enjoyed about the change a few years back was that it is now one song vs multiple songs for buffing a party member, and that songs buffs not available before to bards (self-inspired) are available under the current system.
I would be for a system that reduced the potential time waiting on buffs and it does make sense for buffs bestowed as a song to affect everyone in range. Could even use the same range as Fascinate

 

[Dandonk]

Playing inspiration for the three of us in my TR group is a minor annoyance. Doing it for entire raids is really, really, really (censored) annoying.

 

[Phoenicis]

IF memory serves, a dev said there is an issue with a single song applying different buffs to constructs/undead/fleshies, which is why currently the inspire confidence is single target.

 

[Oliphant]

We have to explain why its a boring waste of time to sit there while bards sing 12 separate duets? Uh ok I'll try: Very cringey when the musical act gets in everyone's face individually serenading them. Its also slow and boring.

 

[somenewnoob]

There needs to be a "Inspire all" option that sings to each member of your party in range and takes that many bard songs away. Raid singing is too slow now.

 

[Dandonk]

We have to explain why its a boring waste of time to sit there while bards sing 12 separate duets? Uh ok I'll try: Very cringey when the musical act gets in everyone's face individually serenading them. Its also slow and boring.

So much this.

 

[Titus Ovid]

Ok, I try again.
You want information on this? Player opinions, ideas and be inspired to solve this?
Research the old forum. You will find everything on a silver platter.

Titus.

 

[Palumtra]

Yes, the Bardic Inspiration needs to be looked at because even with the tumble animation cancel it takes long to buff a full group, it would be nice to somehow get the "mass version" working.

 

[Kritikal]

In Raid conversation-
Player 12: "What is that awe inspiring tune I'm hearing?"
Player 2: "That's not for you. It's for Player 1. You're not hearing anything. It's your imagination."
Player 7: "Wait your turn, Player 12. You are deaf until the Bard singles you out."
Player 4: "Did you put points into the Listen Skill, Player 12?"
Player 8: "Can we just play? Waiting on the Bard is tiresome.
Player 11 (yells): "Leroy Jenkins!!"

 

[Ying]

Severlin had mentioned on the recent livestream that he wanted more info on how/why people wanted bard songs to be aoe.

For the same reason we got Mass Freedom of Movement and Mass True Seeing: It's quality of life. It's a drag to single target 12 people in a raid with songs. And if there's a rest shrine, just shoot me now.

 

[Dandonk]

And if there's a rest shrine, just shoot me now.

Don't even get me started...

 

[Aebro Komatme]

How is a song NOT an AoE?

Is the bard handing Sony Walkman headphones to each party member one by one, and pressing play? Only asking cuz that’s exactly what it currently feels like.

 

[Skoltr]

Yeah sad thing is there was an epic sword Elyd Edge that made your inspire songs aoe and it was changed. Not sure why it made the sword a lot less desirable and I personally didn't want to play a bard anymore. Single target songs for buffing is a pain, if I play my bard I generally only buff the trapper or person with talkys.

Found in old forums first page says why elyde edge was cut down and why songs aren't aoe.
https://forums-old.ddo.com/forums/s...ly-Look-Bard-Changes?highlight=epic+elyd+edge

 

[Dragnilar]

paladin with Nickelback

Off Topic: Not that it really matters... but this Dragonborn Paladin listens to things like Fields of the Nephilim and Portion Control.

 

[rabidfox]

Warlock gets the all in-one energy resist SLA (and cleric t5 & US have the mass Divine Energy Resistance); I'd love to have the all-in-one resist available as a spell for any class that currently can cast resists, would be a nice QoL (I don't mind paying even more than 5x the spell point cost of individually buffing if I could cast once and get moving).

Mass deadly weapons, mass GEW, so many things would make for QoL choices to reduce buffing.

 

[rabidfox]

For the same reason we got Mass Freedom of Movement and Mass True Seeing: It's quality of life. It's a drag to single target 12 people in a raid with songs. And if there's a rest shrine, just shoot me now.

People like to claim that the devs don't listen. I asked for those mass spells and it was in the next update. Sometimes the devs just rock like that.

 

[Eoin]

Found in old forums first page says why elyde edge was cut down and why songs aren't aoe.
https://forums-old.ddo.com/forums/s...ly-Look-Bard-Changes?highlight=epic+elyd+edge

I didn't make it through the whole thread and I wasn't playing at the time of the change... so please correct me if I'm wrong.

Sustaining song needs to be snapshotted as positive, negative, or repair because of technical limitations to get the heal over time to apply correctly. Trying to apply that calculation in an AOE fashion turned the game engine into a sad panda. So it couldn't be part of the ballad.

So to work around this issue, could the game engine find all of the PCs around the bard, add those PCs to a queue, and then apply the inspiration individually to each PC queued up? If it would take a second or three to work the queue, I think most of us would be okay with that work around.