Yes I read the post, and here's what I got from it:
>>>* Drums look like flutes when equipped. Strumming a flute looks quite silly
[Wrinn, Gordon] – We may at some point look into creating another drum model, but it’s not a high priority at the moment as it’s not a functional issue.<<<
Although not the answer I would have liked, it's a HELL of a lot more of an answer than we have EVER gotten on that issue. At least now we can put that on the back burner.
>>>* Brahm’s Horn has no graphics when equipped.
[Wrinn, Gordon] – Fixed in the database. Next item patch.<<<
Fixed. No arguemnets there.
>>>* Raw bamboo (wind instrument) has no wind animation – should be same as a
flute.
[Wrinn, Gordon] – I don’t believe that raw bamboo qualifies as a wind instrument. We’ll see for certain in the next patch. The original implementation was meant to be a component for instrument construction.<<<
Considering VI's track record, it'll probably just stay as a Wind instrument ;)
>>>* Female bards cannot dance.
[Wrinn, Gordon] – Shared animations don’t translate from the parent character due to side of the model. We’ll see about addressing this at some point in the future, but as with the drum issue, it’s not a high priority.<<<
As I personally have seen many female bards post how they DON'T want to dance, I think this is more of a taste issue. Personally I would like to see a toggle switch for animations.
>>>* [Non bug, but annoying] Bard 'waddles' when running. Why this animation
was changed from the glide effect is odd since the bard was strumming a
flute.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- Working as intended. This is the animation that is used, and though I understand that there are some that do not like the animation, it wouldn’t be prudent to revisit it when time can be spent on more fruitful pursuits. There were people complaining about the “glide” at one point which is why a “running while playing” animation was put in.<<<
As pointed out here and on the Concert Hall boards, it seems that with the last patch the "waddle" has been even'd out. But really... how much of a playability issue is this? (I miss the glide myself, but I can live with the current waddle)
>>>* Mask of Songbird – Plane of Sky item weighs 5.0. Obvious typo. ALL other
POS masks for all other classes weigh 0.5 or less. Not sure if this has been
fixed yet.
[Wrinn, Gordon] – Just had this fixed in the database.<<<
Fixed.
>>>* Small Brass Trumpet/Practice Lute - item listed in patch message over a year ago. No one
has ever found item –ever.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- It's not in game. There are no specific plans for it in game. Our apologies for listing it previously.<<<
Yeah, those are a complete screw-job. At least we now know they aren't in, but why the hell they said they were in the first place are beyond me. /rude Verant.
>>>* Both Lizardman Scout Fife or Froglok Escort Fife are unusable as
instruments.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- They aren't meant to be usable as instruments.<<<
For me, that's not really a problem (although I do think it's a bit silly for them not to be Wind instruments)
>>>* Lyssa's Veracious Concord (24)/Psalm of Warmth (25)/Psalms of Cooling (33)/Psalms of Purity (37)
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- Fixed in next client. <<<
More fixed things :o)
>>>Solon’s Song of the Sirens (27)/Solon’s Bewitching Bravura (39)
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- Can't reproduce any differences between the servers. In any case, the charm spell is not designed to be refreshable, in any form. It is currently working as intended.<<<
If it works differently than it's supposed to on the PvP servers: SHHHHHHHH!!! ;o) I think any answer to that one should be "Oh yeah... you're right Gordon, it DOESN'T work that way on PvP" (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)
>>>* Psalms of Vitality (29) - Song was updated to do cure on pulse, but does
not seem to do so reliably. Many bards have seen message “Your affliction
has been cured by a magical enchantment” but the disease/poison icon still
present OR continue to lose hit points.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- Todd tested this. The song works fine, but the success message is being sent no matter what. The message is what's broken, not the song.<<<
It'll get fixed... eventually. At least we now know the song itself works (although I have yet to try it)
>>>*Syvelian’s Anti-Magic Aura (40) – Song appears to dispel magic, but the
bard receives no feedback message when used on mobs (e.g. “MobX looks
dispelled”).
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- Javier has fixed this in the database. Next spell update. <<<
Fixed.
>>>* Jonthan’s Provocation (45) (et al) – Song is a mix of Str+AC+ damage absorption
shield. If shield is used up, all other effects fail.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- All spells work this way. If one component of a spell is used up, overwritten, resisted, or dispelled, all other components suffer the same fate.<<<
To me, this is just piss-poor coding. This will be an issue that will come back time and again.
>>>* Kellin's Lucid Lullaby (15) – Song is essentially unusable due to 80%
resist rates. Song also overrides higher-level enchanter mez spells. Bards
have done extensive testing of this song at all levels, charisma, and mob
levels and have found that: higher charisma increases resists and higher
level increases resists. GZ has stated song should have 35% resist rate, but
actual numbers are twice this (from what bards believe, bad coding in
secondary resist). VI has stated that song was tested and is working as
intended, but offers no proof of testing or what was actually tested.
Without this song, the only form of bard “crowd control” is charming or
single target mezzing (not that it works either). The amount of evidence of
this song not working is enormous and can all be found at Concert Hall site.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- The resist rates cited are not correct for most encounters. Though anecdotes on the next report resist rates in excess of 80% even with a level 60 bard versus a level 1 snake, we’ve found that to be incorrect. The spell has use at the lower levels, but as designed, it becomes far less useful for higher level encounters. Works as intended.<<<
One day...
>>>* Selo’s Constant Chain (23) One of two songs unintentionally nerfed when 54
song was changed. Song used to stop mobs in their tracks at 50% health,
since patch does not stop mob until down to 20%. Song also overrides higher
level snares of other classes. UPDATE: VI has decided that song was too
powerful after 18 months as-is with no documented complaints. Consensus on
bard bulletin boards is that VI does not want to spend time to fix song and
has instead opted for a cop-out nerf. Song has random 0-9 second duration, 3
second casting time, and higher resists than snare/root. If song is left
as-is, bards want a full 9 second chain to make up for reduced strength &
high resists, now it is just weak AND unpredictable.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- Works as intended. The previous operation of the spell yielded creatures that would stop cold when fleeing at aroudn 50% health. Rather than fight like a rooted NPC (which would have been fine), the NPCs would do nothing while getting beaten for half of their life.<<<
See above.
>>>* Denon’s Dissension (35) – Intended to be a mana draining song. Drains mana
at an incredibly slow pace. In PvP, a player with breeze or clarity can
easily outpace mana drain done by this song. Use against mobs of same level
an exercise in futility unless bard has about an hour to drain the mob’s
mana.
[Wrinn, Gordon] – This spell is working as intended. If we need to reevaluate it at some point we can.<<<
That's an open door we have NEVER had before. As a matter of fact, any time this has been brought up, we've gotten the aformentioned Lullaby/Chains answer.
>>>* Selo’s Assonaint Strane (54)/Rondo – An AE slow song intended to be upgrade to
level 20 AE slow song. The problem: Instrument has no effect on 54 song,
resulting in a 20% slow versus 35% from level 20 song.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- I'll ask testing to check instrument effectiveness.<<<
No reason to complain about that *yet*. Wait until the testing is done.
>>>BAD QUEST ISSUES<<<
My question here is "Didn't you post a while back that there is now someone that does nothing but work on quests?" This too will come back to haunt them.
>>>* No one has seen a Burnyai Bunt Cake (Firiona Vie quest from Scout Treekill
for a bard helm). Can someone confirm that item can be found on a live
server?
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- This isn't a quest. It's a story. The item isn't in game purposely.<<<
Okay, at least we can stop looking. Perhaps they can take the text out about a bard's helm being offered for the Cake?
>>>* Singing Short Sword. Haste effect a proc that is marginally better than
existing bard haste songs and worse than enchanter haste buffs. Proc effect
cancels the better enchanter haste spells.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- We're reevaluating several of the epic-quest items tomorrow.<<<
Again, no reason to complain until we hear from them on it. Any complaining now would just be a waste of energy.
>>>Helm(Eye of Zomm)/helm/gloves- I dont really see any use for this, even as a novelty.I
agree there needs to be more fun items in the game, but please dont make
this an item that comes off a level 55 mob.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- It's not something that they are required to wear. It's a choice. If they feel that it has no value, they should seek out something more to their liking.<<<
Definite weak answer. Another thing to bring up to "other folks at VI" *eg*
>>>Brestplate(Invigorate)- A 100 point heal, with a very long cast time.I dont
know one bard who would use this..You must stop singing to use effects.A
bard at the level it would take to aquire this would get MUCH greater effect
for the whole group by just twisting 1 or 2 songs.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- Maybe we should reevaluate this one. This is supposed to be a good effect. A bard can get nearly this value of healing in the casting time of the breastplate just by playing their song with the appropriate instrument.<<<
See the "wait" comment above.
>>>Gloves-( Enduring breathe) again, this would be useful to someone who isnt a
bard.There is currently one dungeon in the game that requires water
breathing.Kedge Keep...I dont know any bards who can solo there, if any
exists...Therefore, if a bard is down there, he is with a group..if he is
with a group, he will be singing his enduring breathe song most
likely...kinda redundant..
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- It's not something that they are required to wear. It's a choice. If they feel that it has no value, they should seek out something more to their liking. In regards to the complaint that the bard will already be singing the water-breathing song, by having this item the bard no longer has the need to do that, allowing them to twist other, more preferable songs. It is very useful in limited circumstances.<<<
Along with the Summon Food/Water, I've always liked this effect (although there should be more than 1 water or food item summoned). *shrugs* Personal taste issue I guess.
>>>Legs-(Summon Food) The casting time on this is way too long, specially for
something that comes off such a mob.It is more time effectiant for a bard to
beg a local magician to summon him 20 food 20 drink in the time it takes a
bard to produce 1 food 1 drink.I think it should be replaced with
cornicopia.This will not be unbalancing if you keep it's current casting
time.And this wont take away the newbie mage mainstay for making money,
summoning, because at the level it takes to get/use this item, who would sit
around summoning food to sell to newbies?
[Wrinn, Gordon] – The spell may very well be inappropriate. We’ll put it on the list for discussion.
Boots(Summon drink) pretty much same argument as legs..
[Wrinn, Gordon] –This one too.<<<
There ya go :o) (Personally, I think this is mainly becasue of the fear of bad publicity from a bad taste standpoint, ala Mystere).
>>>My suggestions..
Helm-Some sort of Charisma buff
Brestplate-Something like illusion werewolf..it makes roleplay sense, as the
bards in Mistmoore do it.
Arms-A Dexerity Buff
Bracers-Keep the same
Gloves-An agi buff
Pants-Cornicopia
Boots-Everfont
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- Nearly all of the spells on all of the activatable armor (across all classes) has limited usefulness. The spells suggested here would all be very useful, leading to balance problems with the activatable items of other classes. In the end, though I do want to revisit a couple of the items, it is still the choice of the bard to wear or not wear this armor. The armor itself is not meant to be an upgrade to planar armor, but an alternative. <<<
Personally I want Illusion Vox for the helm ;o) Some of the items will be re-visited, let's just wait and see.
>>>* Stuck songs/Start/stop songs – bards occasionally get stuck on a song and are unable to
stop it. Difficult to replicate, but appears to be associated with lag. Once
stuck, the /stopsong command has no effect. The only know cure is to spam
the hotkey/gem repeatedly (a few dozen times) or log.
[Wrinn, Gordon] – We’ve never been able to pin this one down. If they have a way to do it, the testing department would be very happy to talk about it on the QA board.<<<
If they can pin it down, it will get fixed. Granted, all they would have to do is hit a live server and watch a real bard for a few minutes to see it.
>>>* Songs breaking rogue sneaking. Two issues: bards able to break rogues
sneaking even if rogue not in same group and bards singing mana song break
rouges sneaking even if rogue a moderate distance away.
[Wrinn, Gordon] – I’ve asked Roger to bump this up on his plate. It’s been around for a while and we should get it fixed.<<<
Although that's more of a Rogue issue than bard... I think. Working on being fixed.
>>>* Chords of Dissonance (2)/Disruptive Discord (10) – no animation when playing song and no mobs in
range. Very dangerous with AE damage song.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- This is how these spells work.<<<
My question to that wouold be "Why is that intended?"
>>>* Selo’s no longer breaks root on PvP servers. Since release, if a bard had
selo’s song up and was rooted by a player/mob, the next pulse of speed song
would break the root (if song was not up prior to root, song would not break
it). A recent unannounced patch eliminated this ability resulting in many
PvP bard’s deaths. Bard’s are mostly upset because there are so many
legitimate, long-standing problems with the class and these are types of
things being worked on.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- The fact that it ever broke root was a bug. While I understand the desire for us to fix “long standing problems” before working on issues of this nature, this turned out to be a quick fix that was very easily addressed. We could leave stuff like this in while doing all of the other fixes, however we’d then have to deal with complaints that “It’s always been like this” and “why didn’t we fix it sooner”. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword.<<<
I can remember brad himself saying it WAS supposed to at one point, and also saying it WASN'T at another point. Personally, I don't think anyone at VI really knows for sure.
>>>* Lock picking. Bards get skill at level 40. Skill is capped so low that
bards can only open doors in Befallen and gate to the Hole. Raising skill
would be nice to open Kunark doors – why is a level 40 bard opening doors in
newbie dungeon? (check bard count at primetime hours, and you’ll be lucky to
see more than 12 45+ bards on any server).
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- Bard lock-picking is supposed to have limited usefulness. At the moment there are very few locked doors in mid-level dungeons that would be appropriate targets for Bard lock-picking. Perhaps at some point it might be appropriate for a newer zone.<<<
Newer zone? Like SoV or The Warrens? Hmmmmm...
>>>* Disarm Traps. Ok, no traps to disarm. Rogues got new skills (backstab &
evade) to make up for this, bards were promised it would be looked into as
well, but never got anything.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- Creation of bard songs and other enhancements that have been made took into account that this skill is not useful in its current form.<<<
Again, "What songs/enhacnements?"
(btw, Evade came from the high taunt factor of Backstab, and Backstab has always been a Rogue skill)
>>>* Skill caps on singing, percussion, string, brass, and wind still at 200
for bards over level 50. Other casting classes have casting skills up to
250.
[Wrinn, Gordon] – Other casting classes don’t go up to 250, but I’m not opposed to increasing the instrument caps to reduce failures. We’ll put it in the next patch.<<<
Anyone else here remember hearing that song/instrument skills would *NEVER* be increased? *wide grin*
>>>* Dodge/Parry. Bards get skills at 53 and 58 respectively. Way too high for
most players to ever see them and excessively high compared to other classes
that get these skills in 20s and 30s. Both parry & riposte capped at 70.
Below is summary of all melee/hybrid combat skills to put this into
perspective:
[Wrinn, Gordon] – I understand the point, but the skills were not meant to be a large balance component to the class, but rather a reward for making it that high in level. Decreasing the level of acquisition or increasing the caps wouldn’t be appropriate.<<<
Ahh, but any skill that isn't high enough to be useful isn't really a skill is it? Another item to bring up later (I think in time that will go the same way as the instrument skill caps)
>>>* Still missing 49 song- thanks for asking for our input Abashi. Lots of
good suggestions out there.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- No 49th level song is planned at this time.<<<
No excuse for that. Just plain laziness. Get your nose out of Lucas's back-side and finsish this game FIRST ;p
>>>* Could musical instruments (when viewed) contain information on which skill
they are for? Percussion/String/Wind/Brass. Not always obvious on wind/brass
instruments. Also, would be fantastic to see something like “+10% to some
brass” or “+5% to combat wind”. Often, only very high level bards can
baseline instrument improvements today (hard to see 5% improvement if song
only adds 5 strength).
[Wrinn, Gordon] – I suppose we can compromise here. We’ll have the skill used displayed on the item tag following the next client-patch, but won’t list the direct modifiers.<<<
As with the skill caps on instruments, I remember him saying that that would *NEVER* be implemented.
>>>* Denon’s Desperate Dirge (43) – 800 mana for AE 275 damage.
Breeze/Clarity/Mana song have no effect on bards mana regen (takes 30+
minutes to recharge when OOM), making this song the absolute worst in terms
of damage/downtime. With 39 charm song now using mana, bards never use this
song. Abashi started a thread asking for input and consensus was: allow song
to be memmed, sung immediately (at no mana cost), and then have a 15-minute
effect on player where song could not be sung again. Let’s face it, 800 mana
is 80-90% of a bards mana and doesn’t leave much for charming. 275 damage on
a level 43 mob is less than one half of one bub of hp.
* Mana on 39 charm song. Biggest problem is that after a rez, a bard has no
mana, and often takes almost an hour to get back to FM. The ability for a
bard to charm should be dependent on this.
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- This is as designed. Bards are not supposed to get any benefit from +mana songs. Using one of their two mana-using songs is supposed to have a large cost. It is the drawback for having powerful songs.<<<
At the higher levels, this song isn't really "powerful". I feel that this too will be re-addressed in time.
>>>* Instrument pieces. Lots of bardic instrument pieces at vendors (including
one in Kunark), but no way to put them together. Perhaps add to tinkering or
put in bard only instrument skill (like research).
[Wrinn, Gordon] -- Odds and ends are possible avenues for future content additions.<<<
*shrugs* What I've always figured.
As you can see, we got a couple of VERY BIG concessions. I think with time, others will come 9and this time last week I sure as heck wouldn't have thought that at all).
-=B=-
The Rathe