Bard and PvP: A discussion

With the recent apparent increase in the player base in mind, I'd like to start a congenial discussion about the bard skills and PvP. My goal here is to understand what happened with the apparent drop in PvP activity in the months following the bard skill tree's release and what might be done to reverse it. Of course, this is my perspective of what happened and I am always willing and capable of being wrong. Please feel free to correct me.

I'll start by saying that I have not put any experience points into bard and I don't PvP in any meaningful way. I did play around with bard in offline mode when it first came out. But, I did not train it in online mode as it didn't feel complete to me. I decided to wait for iterations before really getting into bard. As for PvP, I don't mind adventuring in PvP zone. Getting caught off guard can be fun once in a while. But, I have rarely ever flagged PvP and generally don't take part in duels etc. PvP can be fun. But, for me, PvP is not even close to being my play style or my main goal in SotA.

With the preamble out of the way, let me get to the point. When bard skills were first talked about, there seemed to be a lot of interest in the community. By the time they were introduced, some people were quite excited. A lot of people dove in and put a lot of EXP into the skill tree and found a number of new and fun builds. I considered doing the same. However, I was, and still am, happy with my sword and board for the moment. Yes, I'm a "slow" player when it comes to MMOs. I'm perfectly happy to take years to level up where other take months. I knew I would have plenty of opportunity to pick up bard when I eventually outgrew my standard builds.

However, 2-3 months after bard was introduced, I noticed a number of the PvP players being online less and less. Some of them seem to have eventually left altogether or at least have taken a very long break.
My understand from at least a few of the "pro" PvPers was the main reason they got bored and moved to other games was directly or indirectly because of the bard skills. From the perspective of a primarily PvE player like myself, bard is a powerful buff skill tree that makes solo player builds much easier. To a primarily PvP focused player, however, bard is THE OP tree to combo a build with. It seems once bard was introduced, in a matter of weeks, a large swath of the hardcore primary PvP competitors found there was no longer a viable build that didn't include bard skills out of necessity. There's not much competition when there is only one build worth trying. It seems, bard made most non-bard PvP build obsolete in very short order. Water is an effective counter to fire. Shields are an effective counter to arrows. Nothing is an effective counter to bard.

I know some people would be happy to remove PvP from the game altogether. Others would love full loot, always on, open world, PvP for everyone. I imagine most sit right in the middle with little interest or concern either way. But, my stance has long been, some PvP is required for a functioning MMO community and economy. I feel that the wide range of play styles make for a better and larger player base. We need a lot of niche players so all the niches are filled. Assuming that I am correct about bard & PvP, or at least I'm heading in the correct direction of thought. What can be done adjust bard, PvP, both or something else to create more competitive PvP play styles so those players can have as much fun as the rest of us?

Please feel free to correct me, add your own perspective, or disagree completely. Just keep it convivial and on topic please.

 

Require a bard to actually equip and use an instrument and so be unable to use both hands for weapons or weapon and shield?

Currently there is a "musical instrument" slot on the character sheet but it does not prevent bards from using both hands for something else.

On the other hand even non-combat utility items (etc. mugs, pipes, spyglass) require to be equipped in a hand to be used with their connected emote, which probably would be no balance problem if utility items and their emotes would work by using the emote just by having the item in the inventory instead of equipping it or changing to a deck that has it equipped.

 

The Bard tree feels well made for pve. To be an effective Bard, you have to be proactive with the skills due to long cast times and very short duration. I use Bard to augment my fighter builds for pve only. For pvp, due to its long cast times and short duration, I don’t see it as a useful skill for pvp for 1 on 1 situations. I can see its usefulness if pvp was “large group vs large group” where pvp battles lasted longer.

 

I'll come right out and just say it: Bard is the salient reason I'm not playing SotA, and if it were completely removed or, at the very least, disabled entirely in terms of PvP... I'd play again. It removed all the nuance out of a flawed, but otherwise awesome combat system. Out of every single skill tree... Bard is the only one you'd be a fool to not use because of how OP it was, and how OP it still remains today.

In other words, when this game was still in funding phase, LB told us all that he had no problem with us running our own shards like UO. If someone were to turn over the code... I'd be happy to delete bard and run my own dream version of SotA Classic.

#MakeSotA2018Again

Miss you!

 

When you have had experience with the Bard build and PVP combats - could you elaborate in detail what made it overpowerd to what other build?

 

Well, I've never played Bardo, and I don't think I'll play it anytime soon.

Now about PvP, I agree that it needs to be worked on and put into practice in SotA, I personally have never done PvP, for numerous reasons.

There would be no shortage of suggestions for fixing PvP, but the Devs will never have this "job".

 

From my understanding, this was how it was suppose to work. But it just never happened.

Atonal is ridiculous. There is no counter for it. It's a mobile aoe that does massive damage, and once activated you can just use all your other skills. In group combat everyone can just activate it and you can just destroy everything.

Just picture a group of 5 or 6 really strong players, all with 5/6 stacks of Atonal Aria going at all times. The only counter is to do the same thing or run away.

I suggest making it so it does not damage other players at all, under any circumstances. That would keep pve completely untouched and should allow for more meaningful pvp, especially in group situations. I don't think this would completely fix pvp by any means, but I think it's necessary before making any other changes to pvp.

In fact they should probably just disable bard completely in pvp. All the skills are very powerful and essentially make most of the other skills in the game useless.

 

Can several bards use the same skill at the same time?

When a Wizard casts an AOE spell (e.g. Air - Lightning Storm) is that spell not ended and replaced, as soon as another wizard casts the same spell?

 

I do flag PvP on two alts but have never gotten jumped out in the wild except for in Castle Atos. The only reason I don't PvP on main is because it is a completely different skillset than PvE and the main PvP'ers know exactly how to build for it. As for Bard I have never really used it but I do notice most PvP players do.
vj

 

Yeah I mentioned above that a group of players can all run Atonal at the same time. Which is horrible because there is no counter to Atonal Aria at all.

The implementation for bard was very strange. It's extremely powerful, broken, and locked behind episode 2 access. It even has a hidden bonus to taming. The bard specialization skill raises the power of frenzy in the taming tree (the effect use to be twice as powerful i think, but they reduced it). No other specialization for any other tree directly effects skills in a different tree. Very weird.

 

Wax in your ears? Worked for Odysseus vs. the Sirens.
Could be implemented similar to Smelling Salts.

 

I like the idea, but adding an item that you have to use at all times in pvp will not be a popular solution. Theres already so much stuff you need to remember to be effective in pvp. Just disabling it in pvp will have the same outcome as your idea, but much less tedious for the players.

If it were up to me I would change it for both pvp and pve. The changes I would make would be pretty simple. You cannot do anything else while a bard song is playing, and you can only activate one bard song at a time. That would make it a true support class and stop the OP crap were dealing with right now. But I doubt that would be popular for pve players, so I thought maybe disabling it in pvp might be better overall. Those are just my ideas on the subject though, there are probably better solutions!

 

Possible solution:
When in PvP, the caster get's no buff from bard skills. In all cases, you can carry only one instance of a bard buff. e.g. No stacking



Thoughts?

 

I'll give you an idea about Bard, although I haven't played it and haven't seen its benefits yet.

To “facilitate” PvP: The skills would only have their full percentage if the Bard was using a Scepter (or a specific weapon for that class).
Mages are the same thing: they would need a Staff in their hand to have full magical damage.

I still can't understand a swordsman casting fire spells/etc or casting a bardic healing spell (in addition to standard healing).

If the bard has some broken skills, it's easy to transform them to only be useful for pvp or pve.

 

If I'm following you, it would still be possible for a group of pvpers to have all the important bard buffs active if everyone was playing different songs. The dps output for those situations is too high to make pvp interesting. That's the real problem, all the buffs to dps and crit damage just get ridiculous. Even removing Atonal Aria completely and using limitations like that, pvp would still be horrible...

Bard is just too powerful in general. It needs very heavy limitations to have it make sense in any form of pvp.

 

Interesting discussion on how Bard Atonal Aria does AOE damage in PvP.

One on One PvP:
If you keep dying because of Atonal Aria, the countermeasure is to use Atonal Aria also. Now the other player is at risk the same way you were.

One PvP player vs. Many PvP players;
Indeed that if those many players all used
Atonal Aria on you, death is certain. But the same could be said if they all didn’t use Atonal Aria; you’re doomed by the group attack using other random skills.

 

Yeah unfortunately pvp in any game, when you get to the end game the best build is used against you. In this game every end game build has Atonal Aria.... that's not how pvp should work.

If they aren't using it against you in this game, they're just being lazy because they don't need to.

 

Please show me another pvp type game that has a similar skill or attack that works like bard or Atonal Aria.

 

I think the bard tree was probably the most rushed thing that ever went into the game. When it went live, literally every active skill either didn't work or was OP. A lot of things did eventually get fixed, but it's still always felt super unfinished, which is too bad, because it seems like it has the potential to be really cool. It's not just that it's too strong or that held instruments weren't implemented, but it's also just so much less gear-dependent than everything else in the game. You can't just splash some magic DPS on an all-in melee build and expect it to be anywhere near as effective as it would be from an actual mage. That would be ridiculous, like bard skills.

 

Hello All.
I will offer my 2 cents since I use Bard a lot and PVP a lot. I will make this brief.

#1 Bard songs ARE OP in pvp and pve.... however, they are not used as much in pvp because of their long cast times, however Mending and Recovery are used a lot. Atonal is only good at the start of the fight but after it wears off it takes too long in a pvp fight to put it back on, same for Sonata.

#2 They spoke about if you don't have a instrument equipped it would reduce your bard power during a fight unless you lvled up the proficiency skill (forget the name not logged in right now). However for reason I don't know the skill still is there but they never made the change. Not sure why, but I feel this would be a BIG step into making bard way less OP unless you had a dedicated bard in the group. The skill is there.... they just need to finish it.

#3 Bard songs ARE powerful, however I know for a fact (from testing) that they are not AS powerful as people think. I am bard speced and with SS on I can do 3000-9000 crits, however when my songs run out in a fight I can still do 2000-7500 crits, so it is a difference but if they fix the skill (in topic #2) I feel it will make barding a much more balance skill again.

#4 If both pvpers have bard skills then realistically they are both as op as the other so it balances out, its only when someone isnt bard skilled is when there is a difference. To me this is the same as saying a ranged player is OP because they can kite a melee player. However this is not an excuse to not fix the bard tree, they should 100% implement the skill in topic#2 IMO this is the best way to fix bard without messing with the skills so much that bard becomes another spec hardly no one will use like life spec.

Anyways just my 2 cents.