BARD 2.1 change [requesting letter from the producer explanation]

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings, everyone!

Based on fan translations of the interview Famitsu held with Yoshi-P recently, there seems to be a misconception about what was said regarding bard adjustments in 2.1. Contrary to the rumor that an ability would be taken away from bard and moved to a different job, bard will not be losing a main ability.

This confusion appears to stem from Yoshi-P comparing party formations to a puzzle and the jobs being the puzzle pieces. The goal for balancing the game is to make sure that no single job could complete the puzzle alone, and he feels that bard was given too many pieces of the puzzle.

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Thank you for the clarification.

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Originally Posted by Vespar

The puzzle analogy is kind of cryptic. Plz tell us what you intend to do with Bard, as it might be a make or break deal for those that currently play bard.

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A quitter, eh?

I'm sticking to Bard regardless. I like the role.

Losing Invigorate would DECIMATE our sustained DPS over the course of a long fight, especially Turns 4 and 5. I would much rather give up PGL cross-class skills if we were losing a whole job's additional skills.

I figured that they were just going to make Blood for Blood only work for melee strikes.

As it is it's imbalanced for BRD as you have the reward and in most cases ignore the risk.

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Originally Posted by BrandoH

Losing Invigorate would DECIMATE our sustained DPS over the course of a long fight, especially Turns 4 and 5. I would much rather give up PGL cross-class skills if we were losing a whole job's additional skills.

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Wouldnt that give the TP regen songs some use?

I guess Bard will lose Blood for Blood, wich makes sense since Brd can use it from afar not having to deal with as much danger as monks and dragoons while the "+25% Damage taken" is active.

They still talk whit riddles! WHY??? 1 week before the patch LOL

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Originally Posted by Ashgarth

I guess Bard will lose Blood for Blood, wich makes sense since Brd can use it from afar not having to deal with as much danger as monks and dragoons while the "+25% Damage taken" is active.

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Lies bard has to know when to use bfb, just because they are ranged does not mean the 25% increased damage plays no effect. Such an example would be using bfb then on t5 proceed to get metered. On a side note, you can deactivate bfb to dodge its effects if you have to, but bottom line is any class than can use it, can be hindered by the 25% increase in damage. Just because a melee is closer to the boss does not mean it should have rights to such a skill.

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Originally Posted by Kletian

Wouldnt that give the TP regen songs some use?

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Except for the fact that it would gimp us far below the nerfs they already have planned for our class? Now pretend for a second(because that's all you can do when you only have a lvl 15 bard) that you now no longer have invigorate as a dragoon, that is what it feels like as a bard. How do you think it would feel to spend 20secs(plus the time it takes to cast) every 2mins being in a gimped state(20% dmg reduction due to song) when you're already the lowest dps currently? Because that's what people here have been asking, why is the lowest dps in the game getting nerfs to it when no other class is receiving any form of nerf(besides blm which will not effect their dps much) when all of them are already above bards?

If you as a dragoon need a bard to ever use our tp song then you are either a terrible dragoon or have just died on a fight and got rezzed with little tp and no invigorate up. Beyond that if either of those are the case, how hard is it exactly to just say "tp song please"? The same goes for paladins and warriors, they can either speak up when they could use tp or they can stop being terrible and learn how to weave the correct abilities in and out so they stop running out of tp.

Now it would be amazing if people like you could stop posting everytime a bard doesn't know exactly when you need tp or mana because you never speak up. OMFG I NO KNOW HOW TO PLAY?!!?? I NED BARD TO TO BACK ME UP AND MAEK UP 4 MY BEIN TURRIBLE. Seriously people, if you need a song played then SAY SO, DO NOT EXPECT THE BARD IN YOUR GROUP TO ALWAYS KNOW WHEN YOU NEED HELP BECAUSE YOU CAN'T SPEAK UP. It's people like you that are getting the lowest dps class nerfed even more just because bards can't read minds.

Answer a question with a question.
Clarify a puzzle with a puzzle analogy.

:3

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Originally Posted by Arkh

Whatever they do, it will turn a mediocre dps to a shitty one.

This nerf was really not needed, devs are blind. Im forced to play DRG now :(

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Stop the dramatics. Bards make Dragoon + Caster dps incredible, they are extremely mobile, a great silence, and damage output is quite well if you know your rotations.

I'm on the fence about this whole bard thing, I really want to find some clear facts on the whole thing because I'm finding a hard time making a final judgement. All over the forums it seems like there's people who want the nerf to happen vs people who don't agree that not only was the nerf not needed but also that BRD is the lowest dps in the game. Meanwhile, I mentioned dps damage earlier this week and my FC leader says that brd is the highest. I really just want the facts and not have to fish through all of this. :/

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Originally Posted by Silverharp

I'm on the fence about this whole bard thing, I really want to find some clear facts on the whole thing because I'm finding a hard time making a final judgement. All over the forums it seems like there's people who want the nerf to happen vs people who don't agree that not only was the nerf not needed but also that BRD is the lowest dps in the game. Meanwhile, I mentioned dps damage earlier this week and my FC leader says that brd is the highest. I really just want the facts and not have to fish through all of this. :/

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Most of the people wanting the nerf to happen have never played a bard or only played one at early levels where it has a clear advantage over other classes. There's also a high chance the people who have not played one were also blown away by a skilled bard and automatically assume all bards are that good when compared to themselves.

When it comes to what class is the strongest it all comes down to player skill. If I didn't play a bard at endgame level I could sit there till I was blue in the face saying that bard is the strongest just because a skilled bard can out dps a decent anything else. But to actually see a bard at endgame level(Twintania) and to see all other classes barring summoner(I already have seen how well it does when compared to bard) it's easy for me to say bard is below the rest if skill level and gear are equivalent. A good bard can out dps a bad anything else which is probably all your fc leader has seen, but a good anything else can easily out dps a good bard. I've seen with and played with skilled players since I began this game and even with my own gear and skill level I can see the limits of my class when compared to the others.

Too much movement affecting dps is no excuse anymore when all 4 other dps classes are built to have to move but at the same time have the ability to have high numbers that make up for their movement. Bard is built around moving and it's lower dps and instant casts are proof of that. The reason for the melee buff in the first place(even though a skilled melee still does better than a skilled bard) is because the majority of the masses are unskilled and can't manage to keep the damage going while on the move. Those same masses see a decent bard and see how it can keep it's damage going while moving and think "that's OP" when none of them understand why bard is able to do that or even why they can't pull high numbers because they themselves lack the skill to do so.

At this point there's honestly little they could do that would make me switch classes as I enjoy bard and am skilled at it. It's just sad though that in the case of nerfs/buffs they seem to be wanting to appease the masses because they don't understand how a bard works or even how any other class works and assume that movement somehow means less numbers for them.

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Originally Posted by Pellegri

Now it would be amazing if people like you could stop posting everytime a bard doesn't know exactly when you need tp or mana because you never speak up. OMFG I NO KNOW HOW TO PLAY?!!?? I NED BARD TO TO BACK ME UP AND MAEK UP 4 MY BEIN TURRIBLE. Seriously people, if you need a song played then SAY SO, DO NOT EXPECT THE BARD IN YOUR GROUP TO ALWAYS KNOW WHEN YOU NEED HELP BECAUSE YOU CAN'T SPEAK UP. It's people like you that are getting the lowest dps class nerfed even more just because bards can't read minds.

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There are only two healers in a party, it's pretty easy to move them to place in your party list that is easy for you to see and then ballad when they are low on mana, unless otherwise planned for a specific part of a fight. A healer shouldn't have to take their attention off the group to ask for ballad as it could be fatal. Though all healers should have a ballad request macro anyways.

Well first, can SE address as to why going from brd relic to relic +1 bow... we only get +1 damage on our weapon and other jobs get +2 to +3 damage increase from going to a +1 relic weapon? and now this?

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Originally Posted by Ryans

There are only two healers in a party, it's pretty easy to move them to place in your party list that is easy for you to see and then ballad when they are low on mana, unless otherwise planned for a specific part of a fight. A healer shouldn't have to take their attention off the group to ask for ballad as it could be fatal. Though all healers should have a ballad request macro anyways.

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You vastly overestimate a lot of the healers out there or even the bad bards. Yes a good bard will know when healers need mana, I wasn't talking about good bards though when I wrote that though. I was talking about bards who don't know that they have 2 dots they need to keep up at all times and not one after the other when one falls off(meaning putting up a dot waiting for it to fall off then putting up the other and waiting for it to fall off before they use the first again). Bards who think that it's good to sit in song 90% of the dungeon so it helps other people when it's not even needed for 5% of the dungeon. Bards who think that when they move they have to stop attacking until they stop, they don't understand that we can move and damage at the same time.

Can't say what all you've seen but over the last 3 months of this game I've seen far more bards that don't know wtf to do than I have ones that could actually be able to tell a healer needs mana and should ballad on their own. I also wasn't talking about 8man content that is challenging in the slightest(titan/coil), I was talking about 4man content where the vast majority of the complaints about bards come from because either the bard sucks or people don't understand how a bard is played and why it is capable of moving while dpsing.

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Originally Posted by Silverharp

I'm on the fence about this whole bard thing, I really want to find some clear facts on the whole thing because I'm finding a hard time making a final judgement. All over the forums it seems like there's people who want the nerf to happen vs people who don't agree that not only was the nerf not needed but also that BRD is the lowest dps in the game. Meanwhile, I mentioned dps damage earlier this week and my FC leader says that brd is the highest. I really just want the facts and not have to fish through all of this. :/

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your better off leaving it to the professionals, forums are not what they used to be, and you wont get a straight answer. If SE thinks something needs to be done they will do it. There is no need to worry about player hearsay, its mostly just opinions. Bards are a Support class, this means that outside DPS they also have support and utility moves that help the party. This means given their versatility SE thought they had a little too much individually to contribute to the party. the forums are spreading misinformation and assumptions. I normally wouldn't post but you seem to be legitimately concerned. I apologize for not answering your question. I believe there is not a person on these forums who can though.

I'd like to point out to you, Pellegri, that nerfs/buffs in videogames don't solely depend on how loud the community is for or against them.

Technology these days is pretty incredible. They can track their own statistics, parsers, heatmaps, etc. to figure out class balance. I'm not saying the community has no say in it, but you're assumption that the community generally doesn't understand bard isn't true. All the facts that SE has gathered probably point to Bard being a little ahead of the curve.

I see this argument all the time on forums. People assume because others cry "Nerf!" the developers get scared and hit the button. It doesn't quite work that way. There's more going on behind the scenes that you don't see that tells them that a class needs a balance change.

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Originally Posted by Curcio

I'd like to point out to you, Pellegri, that nerfs/buffs in videogames don't solely depend on how loud the community is for or against them.

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Nowhere did I say that's how it was in most games or even mmos, hell I've even played multiple mmos where the community choice ends up being terrible in the end and that's why it was never changed. I've also played mmos where the devs clearly listen to whoever is the loudest when it comes to changes in the game, many changes were originally made going from 1.0 to 2.0 because of community decisions. However when they came to 2.0 those decisions didn't end as you can see over the past few months where many additions were added to 2.1 because of the community and people having a voice.

Do you honestly believe when you look at say the warrior buffs that none of that was because of community outcry? That the devs went from saying early in the games life that warriors were "so strong and people didn't know how to play them correctly" to a complete 180 on the subject a month later when we got a giant list of buffs. Obviously all those changes were made because of dev choices and not because they listened to the community on the subject right?

It's the same thing with bards and melee, melee are getting buffed because the masses can't move out of things fast enough to continue their rotation where they would be higher end damage dealers. Bards are getting some sort of nerf because the masses do not understand how bard works and that because of it's support and movement it is meant to do less damage than everything else(which compared to equally geared/skilled drg/mnk/blm/smn they are lower dps), people don't see that though because they lack the skill many bards have that they are complaining about being so good compared to them.

The following is from personal experience:

If by pieces of the puzzle you mean, Silence and Songs.. For turn 2, 2 Paladins or even a monk(Same for turn 1 ADS) can do this. Songs eventually become obsolete with gear and would probably be better for the group to bring another Summoner or Blackmage. I don't need to use ballad at all even in t4 and t5. The class is very mobile but the dps is subpar. Can't beat the monk or blackmage in my static group at all(according to FFXIVAPP atleast). They're pretty good players. Yeah I have been ahead of the dps but only when I had to pug turn 1-4 for one reason or another lol.

Pellegri,

Your providing misleading information by mixing facts with opinions. Yes SE has taken player input for new features. they have never taken feedback for balance. in fact Yoshi-P's letter points to the WAR being adjusted due to performance at coil. as well as bard being adjusted due to taking away from other jobs

though it could be based off player cries, most of what he has mentioned was entirely directed at balance for end game. as stated earlier, most class balance is done through statistical gathering. not what players think.

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During the previous LIVE letter I made a comment about adjustments to bard, which I think many of you are worried about. The reasoning for adjustments, as mentioned previously, is that bards tend to take away from other jobs that could be used in certain instances.

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We recently released details outlining adjustments for warrior, but this was mainly to address an imbalance in the Binding Coil of Bahamut where paladins are heavily preferred.

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Why exactly are bard changes this great mystery from SE that they have to only drop cryptic clues and hints about them? Less than a week out, is it too much to ask for some actual details other than conjecture, vague interpretations of translations and secret messages? Its quite annoying.

Oh no, my FOTM is being nerfed. Bards want to know exactly what is getting changed so they can plan to level something else. Guess what? If you don't want to ever become obsolete, play a healer.

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Originally Posted by axemtitanium

Oh no, my FOTM is being nerfed. Bards want to know exactly what is getting changed so they can plan to level something else. Guess what? If you don't want to ever become obsolete, play a healer.

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Or you could actually read any of the 90% or so of the posts here where people are asking what the changes are because they want to know if Square is making us worse than we currently are(which is below every other dps, including blm which I'd guess you don't seem to think so). The change they're making for blm in your case doesn't exactly screw over your ability to do high dmg and still compete extremely well with the other 3 dps(not including bard). There's multiple changes however they could make for bard that would screw over our ability to compete at all(like taking invig away as a cross class).

Taking invig away would kill the class alone. So far the only thing that's been said is "we aren't taking away any main abilities for bard", well you know invig could not be thought of as a "main ability" when everyone seems to think "oh you could just use tp song instead, surely that wouldn't gut your dps for 20secs every 2mins and make you well below everything else".

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Originally Posted by Pellegri

*whiny rant*

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so as a test i got through the whole game with a bard that doesn't use invig.......my FC says im one of the best dps we have and coil runs usually go smoothly and i don't use invig, what does that say about the ability?
you have no faith in the bard.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings, everyone!

Based on fan translations of the interview Famitsu held with Yoshi-P recently, there seems to be a misconception about what was said regarding bard adjustments in 2.1. Contrary to the rumor that an ability would be taken away from bard and moved to a different job, bard will not be losing a main ability.

This confusion appears to stem from Yoshi-P comparing party formations to a puzzle and the jobs being the puzzle pieces. The goal for balancing the game is to make sure that no single job could complete the puzzle alone, and he feels that bard was given too many pieces of the puzzle.

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Thank u for that information Camate.

But could it be a note to self for the future to maybe wait releasing a "adjustment/nerf" indication to a class until some good information can be shared?
I think all would benefit from this, since both forums and ingame community has been a bit "toxid" over this issue due to lack of information.

Anyway, looking forward to see what u guys have planed :)

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Originally Posted by Rose_Vilehart

so as a test i got through the whole game with a bard that doesn't use invig.......my FC says im one of the best dps we have and coil runs usually go smoothly and i don't use invig, what does that say about the ability?
you have no faith in the bard.

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*goes to check profile of awesome bard*

Oh wow, you just recently got Coil access, seem to have cleared T1 but nothing beyond that (well you got no Turn clear achievement at all). Nice to talk to someone that knowledgable :).

Anyway back to topic, I guess we will loose Invigorate which kind of sucks. It's not like you need it for most of the game, but there are some points in the game when some extra TP gain comes in handy like AOE situations (WP, T4) or some longer drawn out fights (Titan, Twintania).

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Originally Posted by Noata

they have never taken feedback for balance. in fact Yoshi-P's letter points to the WAR being adjusted due to performance at coil.

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They originally said WAR was perfectly fine in Coil from their original testing. The Community informed them multiple times that they were wrong when comparing PLD on Cad Buff Stacks alone. They continued and said, you just need to figure out the Job. Then they tested again and saw they were wrong.

Devs aren't perfect either and stuff gets overlooked. That's the whole point of a community and forum.

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Originally Posted by ReplicaX

They originally said WAR was perfectly fine in Coil from their original testing. The Community informed them multiple times that they were wrong when comparing PLD on Cad Buff Stacks alone. They continued and said, you just need to figure out the Job. Then they tested again and saw they were wrong.

Devs aren't perfect either and stuff gets overlooked. That's the whole point of a community and forum.

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I think its fair to say that them saying WARs are fine was damage control most likely because the patch was still far away at that point.

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Originally Posted by des

*elitism*

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we don't do T2 atm because some people in the FC are not ready for it, im not and endgame rusher i dont run ahead just for the sake of loot, plus since when has where someone is in a game determined their skill? a bad player can beat the game but suck and a good player can be new to this particular game but be great at it.

Oh and btw this is the 3rd character i have made because i restarted a few times due to not liking how my characters turned out and i took a month break so it makes sense im not as far as i could be.

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Originally Posted by Camate

Greetings, everyone!

Based on fan translations of the interview Famitsu held with Yoshi-P recently, there seems to be a misconception about what was said regarding bard adjustments in 2.1. Contrary to the rumor that an ability would be taken away from bard and moved to a different job, bard will not be losing a main ability.

This confusion appears to stem from Yoshi-P comparing party formations to a puzzle and the jobs being the puzzle pieces. The goal for balancing the game is to make sure that no single job could complete the puzzle alone, and he feels that bard was given too many pieces of the puzzle.

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Respect, dear Yoshi. Your position is very clever

You know, stuff like this:

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Originally Posted by Rose_Vilehart

*whiny rant*

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Originally Posted by Rose_Vilehart

*elitism*

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towards players that have progressed a lot further/cleared content you haven't and probably won't in weeks/months doesn't exactly help you with your statements.

You don't use it? Well congrats because the content you have played so far doesn't really required it. However in the only endgame dungeon (that you haven't cleared) the ability comes in quite handy.

Can you play the whole game without Invigorate? Yes, you can! That still doesn't mean it's or will be a good/fair decision considering melee classes (that already are ahead in damage right now) get buffed with the next patch and Bard that is already a lower tier DPS will get nerfed. So it's understandable that people are upset.

Depending on how harsh the nerf is I'll have to find a new job to play for Twintania as we have 2 Bards right now. Not because of utility or awesome DPS, but just because we have two people that like to play it and the damage is enough to kill her. However with 2.1 that might be not feasible anymore, who knows.

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Originally Posted by des

*snip*

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your logic: im not agreeing with you= i must be bad at the game and will never beat coil even though we are not doing it right now to wait for the rest of our FC to be ready.
stop acting like a child.
oh and btw im not happy that brds are getting a nerf either i personally think they should get a buff and that army peon should not reduce dps, im just not moaning about a cross class ability you can do without

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Originally Posted by Rose_Vilehart

your logic: im not agreeing with you= i must be bad at the game and will never beat coil even though we are not doing it right now to wait for the rest of our FC to be ready.
stop acting like a child.
oh and btw im not happy that brds are getting a nerf either i personally think they should get a buff and that army peon should not reduce dps, im just not moaning about a cross class ability you can do without

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Invigorate is equal to 40 seconds of Army's Paeon worth of TP. Every 2 minutes. That is MP which could be spent on Foe Requiem.

1/3 of the time (40 seconds divided by 120 seconds) you are nerfing your own damage by 20% as opposed to buffing the casters' damage by 20%, which works out to about a 13% damage nerf if you have 1 caster doing exactly as much damage as you do (they usually do more). It's a 26% damage nerf if you run with 2 casters.

A 26% damage nerf is not something to be brushed off lightly.

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Originally Posted by ProxyTooMuch

Invigorate is equal to 40 seconds of Army's Paeon worth of TP. Every 2 minutes. That is MP which could be spent on Foe Requiem.

1/3 of the time (40 seconds divided by 120 seconds) you are nerfing your own damage by 20% as opposed to buffing the casters' damage by 20%, which works out to about a 13% damage nerf if you have 1 caster doing exactly as much damage as you do (they usually do more). It's a 26% damage nerf if you run with 2 casters.

A 26% damage nerf is not something to be brushed off lightly.

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did you even read the part where i said i wished the bard was being buffed?

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Originally Posted by Rose_Vilehart

did you even read the part where i said i wished the bard was being buffed?

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I also read the part where you brushed off invigorate as if it wasn't that big a deal.

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Originally Posted by Pellegri

It's the same thing with melee, melee are getting buffed because the masses can't move out of things fast enough to continue their rotation where they would be higher end damage dealers. Bards are getting nerf because the masses do not understand how bard works and that because of it's support and movement it is meant to do less damage than everything else, people don't see that though because they lack the skill many bards have that they are complaining about being so good compared to them.

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Yeah yeah it sucks to get nerfed.

But in 2.2 we will have this post about lets say monks, blaming clueless noob bards for not having a clue and getting them nerfed. Because SE is nice, they are awesome, they would never just tinker with your favorite class! Nope, gotta be those mean skill-less anonymous nobodies that can sway Yoshi's opinions with but a cry! You think you're right but posts like yours are made by everyone blaming everyone at every patch.

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Originally Posted by Aricori

That's the inconsistent logic here. When it comes down to it, our songs really add to others while hindering our own abilities (exception is Foe of course).

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So when you need to support the group you lose some damage, which is a given in like every game out there, but SE actually decided to put in the option to NOT support on a support class which puts it slightly behind true dps without these options.

How dare they.

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Originally Posted by Megido

Yeah yeah it sucks to get nerfed.

But in 2.2 we will have this post about lets say monks, blaming clueless noob bards for not having a clue and getting them nerfed. Because SE is nice, they are awesome, they would never just tinker with your favorite class! Nope, gotta be those mean skill-less anonymous nobodies that can sway Yoshi's opinions with but a cry! You think you're right but posts like yours are made by everyone blaming everyone at every patch.

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I agree with this the official patch notes are not even out yet and people don't know what they are gunna do to Bard yet everyone is screaming abuse at the developers.
Just wait and see what is going to happen and if it is daft to what they are going to do to Bard complain then... but complaining about something you know nothing about just yet is sad and time consuming nonsense.
I understand that the nerf isn't needed I agree bard need a buff to support skills.