My comments embedded after GZ's comments:
Galtin of E'ci
> >>>Kelin's Lucid Lullaby, I recently tested this song out vs. a level one
> >>>human warrior. My Bard was level 37 at the time, using the Lute of the
> >>>Gypsy Princess and I have charisma of 141. Every round I got the 'so and
> >>>so head nods' message and every nearly every round the test subject was
> >>>able to attack me (about 1 in 10 rounds he would not).
>
> ***GZ SAYS***
> As most high level enchanters from Beta+ can tell you, there are two saving
> throws that happen with an "Enthrall" style effect (such as Kelin's Lucid
> Lullaby) hits a creature. The first saving throw is against the target's
> Magic Resistance. The second saving throw only happens with high level
> monsters - they get a secondary save based on their level. The reason for
> this is that the Enthrall effect is very, very powerful - it allows a single
> player to remove a creature from combat. This means that a party that could
> handle two "X" level mobs might be able to take three, or even four of them
> on if there is somebody around with the Enthrall effect.
>
> Because of this (read game balance) higher level monsters have a harder time
> being enthralled. At lower levels, a single player can take out a single
> opponent of equal level. By mid levels this is much harder, and by high
> levels it is virtually impossible. Allowing a single player to remove one or
> more creatures from combat at high levels is sick level powerful - to the
> point that we designed an entire classes specialty around doing it.
>
> The second saving throw does not send a message the environment - and that
> is something that is on our list of issues to address. There are, however,
> no bugs with the Song.
>
Galtin: Why not just give the higher level mobs a higher initial chance
to resist and not worry about giving them two saving throws? I think giving a
mob two chances to resist songs like Lullaby and Pixie strike screw us over
pretty good. This assumes their resist % chance remains a constant. Example:
Your fighting a mob that has a 33% chance to resist your song. Lets assume he
misses first check. You get success message that song stuck. Now mob gets
second chance to resist. Still has a 33% chance to resist. If he makes this
roll he continues attacking and explains the problems we have been having of
late. If I remember my stats classes correctly, chances are 66% mob will make
one of the two resist rolls. Someone correct me if wrong. If Verant makes
correction that song is successful or resisted after second check is made at
least that fixes the incorrect message bug.
> **************
>
> >>>Alenia's Disenchanting Melody, It does now work (9 months after release),
> >>>but it strips good as well as bad spells from the party, making the song
> >>>worse then useless. Is this the intended effect?
>
> ***GZ SAYS***
> Alenia's Disenchanting Melody works as it was intended to - it follows the
> design that we had for it from the beginning. It is particularly useful?
> Depends if your buddy is dying from a nasty DoT. People use Egg Shaped
> Pumice on themselves all the time on the PvP servers. Is the Disenchanting
> Melody as generally useful as Cancel Magic? Not really.
>
Galtin: Why did they even give us this song then? Wonder if any Verant
employee who plays a bard ever mems this song?
> **************
>
> >>>Angstlich's Appalling Screech, When used against very large creatures
> >>>(Giants, Mammoths, Elephants, etc..) You have to be standing directly
> >>>under or in some cases IN the NPC Avatar for the song to take effect.
> >>>Otherwise the creature will glow, but no message or effect will be seen.
>
> ***GZ SAYS***
> Heh. This is due to how the models are built - each has a "center" point,
> which is what calculates where our servers think the monster actually is.
> Really big creatures have center points farther away from you - hidden deep
> within their polygonal body mass. I will bump the radius of the Screech up a
> bit on the next spell patch and we can see if it works a bit better. Part of
> the problem is that when I play my Bard, I know exactly how these things
> work - and exactly where to stand. Sometimes knowing a bit too much about
> something works against you.
>
Galtin: Good news here. Hopefully radius extended enough to affect stuff
chasing you. I've noticed that when fleeing and weaving selos and fear, I get
too far ahead of the mobs chasing me for fear to take effect.
> **************
>
>
> >>>Solon's Song of the Sirens, Often times when using this in a group
> >>>situation the newly charmed pet will agro on a party member. This could
> >>>cause a nasty way to get around the PvP switch as the pet is immune to PC
> >>>attack. The pet needs to ignore any player characters or pets on its hate
> >>>list when charmed. Also sometimes player pets (party & non-party member
> >>>pets) will attack the Bard charming a NPC if the pet had been attacking
> >>>the NPC.
>
> ***GZ SAYS***
> I've had the pet agro on party members too - but it is usually because one
> of my party members did something to the pet that it didn't like just after
> I charmed it - whacking it, for example. I usually have my pet commands
> hotkeyed, and retarget to something I want my new pet to be attacking as
> soon as I charm it.
>
> Charm can be dangerous because once you take control of a monster, all of
> its actions reflect on you. If you charm a monster that is fighting your
> friend's pet, and the pet hits the monster after you charm it, your charmed
> monster will attack back. When that little fight gets broken up, there is a
> possibility that your friend's pet will come after you - you were, after
> all, the controller of the thing it was just fighting. Charming around pets
> can be done - you just need to be a little more careful.
>
Galtin: Did we ask why there was a level cap on mobs this song could be
used against? Thats a bigger issue IMO than the one he answered.
> **************
>
>
> >>>Crission's Pixie Chase, This song seems to suffer from the same problem
> >>>that Lullaby does, you get the message that the song has taken effect,
> >>>but the target completely ignores the fact that it should be mesmerized
> >>>(similarto the problem with Lucid Lullaby).
>
> ***GZ SAYS***
> See above.
>
Galtin: same comments for Lullaby
> **************
>
>
> >>>Fufil's Curtailing Chant and the other Chant songs, The percussion aspect
> >>>of these songs is broken. Using a drum produces no additional effect
> >>>(damage or resistance debuff).
>
> ***GZ SAYS***
> Hmm - don't use that one much. I'll check. If so, we'll get it fixed right
> up.
>
Galtin: Good news
> **************
> >>>Denon's Dissension, The instrument portion of this song seems to be
> >>>broken. In tests I have run using a horn made no difference in mana drain
> >>>in PvP combat.
>
> ***GZ SAYS***
> This was a very tough song to balance. It takes away mana from other casters
> - the virtual lifeblood of 7 of EverQuest's 14 classes. The amount taken
> away is nice, but not great. Using a Horn increases the amount of mana
> drained. Again, nice, but not great.
>
Galtin: Maybe better question to ask was why do mobs never seem to run
out of mana? Song is useless except in PvP from what I've read since mobs seem
to have infinite amount of mana.
> **************
>
> >>>A while back GZ mentioned the meming time for bard songs would be
> >>>decreased, but it still takes forever to mem songs (due to the lack of a
> >>>mediate skill). Can this be looked into?
>
> ***GZ SAYS***
> It is already on our list of things to add in.
>
Galtin: Best news of all IMO
> **************
>
>