Bard's Thematic Future

[Suniva]

I'm personally not a fan of foe requiem, it's easy to just ignore that mana exists on non-casters (and DRK I guess). Maybe if it was reworked in some other way instead, because Foes was kinda boring to me.

2% crit buff for existing, maybe use foe for...altering the buff somehow? Boosting it? Maybe make Foe Requiem the "stance dance" mechanic of the current Bard, but having it simply alter the buff to other forms instead of the weird "These oGCDs recharge faster now!" and "Now your GCDs fire all the time!" and "Suddenly megadamage!"

There could be something done, and I feel Bard should be an "aura" type support class (whereas Dancer should be a partner-type), but I'd still like to see the gameplay refined and focused more to make more overall sense with whatever path is chosen.

I agree. I'm all for getting rid of the cast times and seeing it re-worked in a way that flows a bit better considering the changes, but I still want it to come back and as you have stated, better refined.

[Brightshadow]

As others have said I don't think that it's fair for Bards to completely lose their identity because some people want a Ranger; however, I do agree that Bards should be more support focused, and perhaps a Ranger should be introduced to split the physical ranged role into two categories:

DPS Focused Physical Ranged Jobs: Machinist & Ranger
Support Focused Physical Ranged Jobs: Dancer & Bard


But how can you give BRD more support without changing the way they play?

Simply attach a party buff to their stance songs (examples of adjustments):
1.) Mage Ballad: Additional Effect - Increases Magical Attack Power of Nearby party members by 1% everytime the Repertoire effect is triggered for a maximum increase of 5%.
2.) Army's Paeon: Additional Effect - Increases Physical Attack Power of Nearby party members by 1% everytime the Repertoire effect is triggered for a maximum increase of 5%.
3.) The Wanderer's Minuet: Additional Effect - Increases Critical Hit Chance of Nearby party members by 2% everytime the Repertoire effect is triggered for a maximum increase of 10%

So BRD can be a party buffer that has to cycle through songs while the dancer will be primarily a single target buffer but with more sustained buffs.

[MartaDemireux]

And what did they do? They kept GLA -> PLD route while introducing DRK as a new job that people could pick up and play.

I fear you're missing my point. My point is that even though the community clamored for it, they didn't do it. They kept ACN as the only class to split. People could clamor for their jobs to have glamours as well, but doesn't mean they would entertain the thought if they only wanted to do it for one or two jobs.

Just separate the two, I feel as if that would be the path of least resistance for the development team that would satisfy both sets of the player base.

Job glamours effectively would separate the two, and as said before, could even act as a stepping stone toward an actual separation should that be a route to consider. Glamours effectively produce 2 whole jobs in one, giving both BRD and RNG a job that feels right while not disrupting the playstyle for either group. People like the playstyle and want it for themselves whether they're on team BRD or team RNG and this is the only way to really maintain that for both. The job is busy enough on it's own that two jobs could absolutely share the playstyle with entirely different themes and still feel good to play.

[ty_taurus]

If you change current BRD into Ranger, you will have to:
—Redo the entire quest chain, because Ranger is completely different from BRD and would likely involve a completely different story,
—Retcon all the lore involved in said quest chain; and you might as well include in future publications of Encyclopedia Eorzea a “Please disregard, this is all defunct now” disclaimer for any and all references to old BRD (there are a few in there),
—Change the BRD quest NPCs’ functions and/or implement new ones entirely, since it make little sense for them to serve the same purpose with a Ranger,
—Reanimate the cutscenes in the new Ranger quest chain, since it would make no sense to see your character playing a harp when they’re a Ranger, and this happens more than just once in the BRD quest chain,
—Rework this new Ranger’s toolkit to make it more “Ranger-like”,
—Oh, and design an entirely new job (this “new Bard”) in addition to all this retconning.

How is this less work than making BRD more BRD-like, and implementing a Ranger job for a future expansion? Please explain; because, while future jobs have to have toolkits made from the ground up, they lack a lot of lower-level quests and lore one would have with an ARR job, since they tend to start 20 levels below the expansion’s level cap. So you get rid of the work needed to make level 30~50, 50~60, 60~70, and level 80 quests/quest chains. You just need to make the quests/quest chains starting from whichever level the new job starts at, and going to current level cap. You also don’t have to worry about retcons (which, a BRD > Ranger transformation is a retcon big enough that it would give the Kingdom Hearts franchise a run for its money), as the lore for a new job is a clean slate that one can put down whatever they want.

Personally, I don’t think you’re actually considering the amount of work one would need to do for this to happen. I think people who are so hellbent on having Ranger, or a Ranger-type job, in this game don’t stop to consider what BRDs want: we don’t want the job we’ve played for years to be turned into something different to satiate those who want Ranger. I don’t care if they add in Ranger as a new job in 6.0. But don’t take the job I started this game on and played as a main for over 3 years (and still play to this day), and change it into something else to please a specific subset of people. Because then, you’re forgetting about the people who played BRD to be a BRD. Why does BRD need to change for those who want Ranger? Why can’t these players be satisfied with Ranger being added in 6.0 or 7.0? Why do they want to take BRD and make it into their job?



You also can’t just give the old BRD quests to this new job, because most new jobs don’t start at level 30 anymore. Any 6.0 jobs will likely start at level 70—so, why is there a 30~70 quest chain for them again? It would make absolutely no sense, and they aren’t going to allow the job to be available at a lower level. I think they’ve set a fair enough precedent for me to say that.

Retconning lore is not an amount of work that you can quantify with man hours unlike actually designing the actions. For the job quests, this concept would definitely require an all-new quest line for the Ranger, but where you would be putting in hours to add quests for the “Old” job quest line, you would be reusing the same quest line for Bard, everywhere that you’re adding work on Ranger, you’re taking away work from Bard and vice versa. Is it more work than creating Dancer or Gunbreaker? Yes, but not so much when you also take into consideration work also done on existing jobs like Machinist. Machinist had a lot of changes made that took a lot of time as well, assuming you don’t need to overhaul any other existing jobs come 6.0, you’re really not looking at a huge differentiation in man hours if you handle it intelligently.

The biggest mess will stem from the retconned lore, but there is no clean answer for how to correct that. Amalgamating Archer and Bard together was a huge mistake from 1.2. It never should’ve happened, but we can’t just time travel backwards and undo that, so at some point we’re going to need to make a little mess if we want to appease BOTH the Archers AND the Bards.

As for the people not wanting to abandon the job they’ve been leveling and gearing up up till now, you can just have the launch of 6.0 include all players who have currently leveled pre-rework Bard to any level have that level transfer over to new bard, and you get the luxury of keeping both Ranger and Bard.

You're still talking about hijacking bard because of the following point:

You want there to be changes to the level 30 onward quests to keep archer tied to whatever hunter/ranger job you would like to see implemented and make bard a separate job in the game not tied to anything. You want to keep the playstyle of bard to be transferred to the ranger, but want the bard to get all the new abilities. You're basically trying to argue that those of us that have mained the class for every expansion up till now, for 6+ years, should have our jobs fundamentally changed, AGAIN, all around simply so those who have made the decision to not main the class because it doesn't play the way it wants get to now have it, simply because of the bow and arrow aesthetic. That isn't fair at all to a majority of the bard mains out there. People don't main a class for 6 years (or less depending when you came to the game, I know I'm old) wishing for it to become something different, a majority main their jobs because they enjoy how the job plays.

The more REASONABLE argument and one that wont upset a majority of the players would be to leave archer -> bard alone and have the development team create a new job of ranger. None of the new jobs that have been added (Machinist/Astrologian/Dark Knight/Gunbreaker/Dancer) are tied to a class, therefore, no quests would have to be touched below level 70 (Since as Hyomin pointed out, all new jobs get introduced 20 levels below current expansion cap, I using this as reference). They all get introduced as their jobs, we do the initial quest, get a job stone and go from there. Hell, I wouldn't mind and actually would find it funny if they made the ranger job quests be a sort of mockery against us "spoony" bards.



We have been fighting, both on English and Japanese forums, to have the bard identity restored. It is not a lost cause, we have been fighting since before Shadowbringers got released because we were concerned with how seemingly our tools got stripped from us to make room for the shiny new dancer. It isn't a lost cause to us. The Japanese forum on bard is 312 pages long and 53 of those pages are of how they are incredibly unhappy with how bard (poet they call it) functions in ShB. Many even pointing out of our 80 job quest is a mockery and a slap in the face to what it means to be a bard. So sorry, but we won't stop fighting for the job we love. Even if we have to fight on two fronts with trying to get the developers to give us some job identity back and on forums with players that want to hijack our class from us so they can get their ranger. We want to keep our job tyvm. Stop trying to take it from us.

The thing about current Bard is that it is and always has been at least 80% archery and 20% music if not even more skewed toward archery. The entire point I want to make is that we shouldn’t have to settle for this mess that’s been created. By separating the two to have 1 dedicated archer and 1 dedicated musician, you make both player bases happy.

We can even just leave Bard alone and not even remove the musical aspects if it hurts people that much, just add in an actual musician using an instrument as their weapon using exclusively musical attacks. If you are a true fan of the Bard aesthetic, why wouldn’t you want that over trying to play tug of war with the Archer players over the current Bard?

That would flat out break the bard storyline, shredding it to pieces. And I'm all for altering lore to fix core problems with the class, but I don't think this is the right solution. I'd sooner see Army's Paeon removed, turn Mage's Ballad into an AoE stance, and Wanderer's Minuet into a single target stance and remove the stance weaving aspect of bard outright (it leads to weird game design if nothing else and the rotation for aoe and ST just feels rough because of the stance, AOE being especially bad).

And then find a way to work the song aspect into other parts of the class instead. BRD feels at its best in WM, at its worst in AP, and merely okay in MB, and with how busy the rotation is right now, changing stances regularly doesn't feel good.

All the class needs is a constant, persistent raid-wide buff and it can maintain some level of thematic cohesion. So just make it so they passively give 1.5% crit like they did in SB (if that's what it did) and that's the constant morale boost they give, Battle Voice can handle the rest.

Why settle for a half-assed Bard though? Why are you okay with an Archer who plays a song that slightly buffs the party and is firing arrows the other 95% of the time? My whole argument is I’m not okay with that. I’ve never been okay with that. There’s literally no reason any of us should be so obsessed with trying to make the current Bard work for both archer players and musician players when it’s always only ever been a mix of water and oil. They don’t mix together. So long as this job stays merged, it will always either not be enough of an Archer or not enough of a Bard. We need to stop pretending that you can solve this problem while leaving it the same job.

Actually, there is one way I could see you actually appeasing both sides of the arguement, but it’s an extremely time-inefficient method:

Create a Ranger Stance and a Bard Stance that are both entirely cosmetic, almost like an Egi-Glamour system but with your entire character.

You input a command, like /bardstance or /rangerstance, and what happens is this…

Your Bow changes to a Harp, every bow will also have a Harp model used for this purpose. All of your actions, and I do mean literally all of your actions, turn into music. Heavy Shot, Straight Shot, Caustic Bite, Bloodletter, Iron Jaws, Empyreal Arrow, Refulgent Arrow… literally everything becomes a song version of the same attack. They all do the same things, the differences are only cosmetic.

Under Ranger Stance, your weapon stays a bow and your song abilities currently normal on Bard are changed to archer-themed actions instead.

There you have it: An Archer and a Bard existing in the same space. You are basically designing an all new job in terms of animations and weapons, except it’s not a new job, it’s just a reskin of an existing one. THAT would make every Bard player happy because you could then just choose which style suits you with no consequences to your DPS, but it’s the least plausible solution available.

Trying to separate Bard from Ranger as two different roles is messy and doesn’t have a perfect solution either, but at the very least you do get 2 different jobs out of if that would play differently, so there’s more incentive for the designers to consider that route.

Honestly, I don’t really care what happens as long as a day comes where a genuine, to-it’s-name musician can exist in this game, and not a half-assed version that we’re all just tolerating because we don’t think Square is willing to get their hands dirty making the mess they need to make to fix this ancient design mistake.

[HyoMinPark]

As for the people not wanting to abandon the job they’ve been leveling and gearing up up till now, you can just have the launch of 6.0 include all players who have currently leveled pre-rework Bard to any level have that level transfer over to new bard, and you get the luxury of keeping both Ranger and Bard.

I’m going to ask you again, because you either missed my questions or outright ignored them: why are BRDs the ones who have to sacrifice their job for those who want Ranger? Why are we the ones who lose our job just so (general) you can have yours? Are you not satisfied with them adding Ranger as a new expansion job? Why does it have to take over and change the BRD that has existed in this game since Patch 1.20?

As for this nonsense of people “settling” for a half-assed BRD, have you been ignoring the threads and comments asking for BRD to be more BRD-like? They’re fairly rife amongst the BRD community.

[ty_taurus]

I’m going to ask you again, because you either missed my questions or outright ignored them: why are BRDs the ones who have to sacrifice their job for those who want Ranger? Why are we the ones who lose our job just so (general) you can have yours? Are you not satisfied with them adding Ranger as a new expansion job? Why does it have to take over and change the BRD that has existed in this game since Patch 1.20?

As for this nonsense of people “settling” for a half-assed BRD, have you been ignoring the threads and comments asking for BRD to be more BRD-like? They’re fairly rife amongst the BRD community.

Because it makes more sense for Ranger to stem from Archer, and also allows for Bards to actually have a Harp weapon instead of a bow. Essentially, your argument is you want to fight over the specific slot Bard currently occupies, even if everything about the Bard identity transfers to a different slot, and you have access to that slot just as you would if it weren't moved. I don't really see what's so special about THAT specific slot that it's worth arguing over.

And I am aware of the "make Bard more Bard-like" debate all around, but the reason why it's settling on mediocrity is because archetype of a battle-musician and an archer are not things that have ever been welded together nor do they mix in a way that satisfies the fantasy both camps desire. Why should we fight for a job to be a kinda-archer/kinda-bard when we can just have an Archer and Bard as two separate entities?

[ForteNightshade]

Retconning lore is not an amount of work that you can quantify with man hours unlike actually designing the actions. For the job quests, this concept would definitely require an all-new quest line for the Ranger, but where you would be putting in hours to add quests for the “Old” job quest line, you would be reusing the same quest line for Bard, everywhere that you’re adding work on Ranger, you’re taking away work from Bard and vice versa. Is it more work than creating Dancer or Gunbreaker? Yes, but not so much when you also take into consideration work also done on existing jobs like Machinist. Machinist had a lot of changes made that took a lot of time as well, assuming you don’t need to overhaul any other existing jobs come 6.0, you’re really not looking at a huge differentiation in man hours if you handle it intelligently.

The biggest mess will stem from the retconned lore, but there is no clean answer for how to correct that. Amalgamating Archer and Bard together was a huge mistake from 1.2. It never should’ve happened, but we can’t just time travel backwards and undo that, so at some point we’re going to need to make a little mess if we want to appease BOTH the Archers AND the Bards.

As for the people not wanting to abandon the job they’ve been leveling and gearing up up till now, you can just have the launch of 6.0 include all players who have currently leveled pre-rework Bard to any level have that level transfer over to new bard, and you get the luxury of keeping both Ranger and Bard.

No. You are severely underestimating the work required. Despite all the changes Machinist underwent, it retained all its lore and reused several animations. Furthermore, you assume no other jobs will need substantial work themselves yet we need only look at the healers to argue quite the contrary. Not only has there been plenty of contempt towards their changes, it's likely a fourth will be added. And we know how difficult a time the dev team has had balancing healers. Regardless, it's shoehorning a bastardized version of Ranger onto a pre-existing Bard to promptly make a bastardized version of new Bard. The probability of this is precisely zero. If they had any aspirations of implementing Ranger, it would have been done by now, or even hinted at. They don't. You keep insisting people who prefer "Bard" will still have their lore if your idea did pan out. However, what about those who like the duo integration? They enjoy being both a Bard and an Archer/Ranger. That aspect is gone all because you want your version of a job. Considering the backlash the dev team would incur, it only adds to the sheer unlikeliness even if it were remotely feasible.

Put simply. It will not happen. If they add a musical themed job again, it will be entirely separate from Bard. And Ranger will inevitably exist within current Bard.

[Brandedblade]

First and foremost, I'm very much on the "bards keep their bows" camp. I've always personally fantasized Rangers as crossbow wielders myself. I like the fact bards are singing archers in this game because its a very very unique aesthetic compared to the bards of other games. What I want to see back is the song buffs. My favorite part, however weak it was, about bards was their crit buff they maintained while keeping their songs up.

I like the idea of bard having weaker damage buffs, but they're all aoe, and dancer having stronger but single target buffs.

I also had the idea of Foe's returning as a Soul Voice spender in the back of my head for awhile now. Make it a 5% damage buff that consumes 10 soul voice a tick and disable its generation while active? Who knows. I like what they have now and would rather them make their utility more interesting then throw it all out and waste resources on retconning a whole job into the game.

[HyoMinPark]

Because it makes more sense for Ranger to stem from Archer, and also allows for Bards to actually have a Harp weapon instead of a bow. Essentially, your argument is you want to fight over the specific slot Bard currently occupies, even if everything about the Bard identity transfers to a different slot, and you have access to that slot just as you would if it weren't moved. I don't really see what's so special about THAT specific slot that it's worth arguing over.

Unfortunately for you, the developers decided about 7 years ago to make Bard stem from Archer. Not Ranger, but Bard. Bards utilize a harp less now than they did in ARR, HW, or even SB: at least then, their support was tied to the harp weapon despite it not being a sort of main or offhand. With SB, they also got flutes.

The point of my entire argument is that individuals that want Ranger are being selfish by trying to oust Bard out of the “specific spot” it’s had since 1.20. They aren’t considering what BRD players want; they are just thinking about what they want. And apparently it’s not enough to have Ranger as a separate thing. As I said repeatedly: why are Bards the ones who have to give up their already established job (and everything along with it) to please those who want Ranger?

Clearly you must think it’s special enough to advocate for taking it away from Bard for Ranger as opposed to Ranger being a 6.0/7.0 job.

And I am aware of the "make Bard more Bard-like" debate all around, but the reason why it's settling on mediocrity is because archetype of a battle-musician and an archer are not things that have ever been welded together nor do they mix in a way that satisfies the fantasy both camps desire. Why should we fight for a job to be a kinda-archer/kinda-bard when we can just have an Archer and Bard as two separate entities?

I’m fairly certain the reasons why Bard lost its support has little to do with Archer+Bard incompatibility and more from the developers wanting to prevent the job from dominating as it has so often in the past. SB BRD was very praised for how “BRD-like” it felt without succumbing to this pure BRD archetype present in games like FFXI. A hybrid job is perfectly capable of existing, as BRD did up until this expansion. And, if the hybrid can exist, why is there a need to destroy it and separate it? There is no need: there’s only a desire by those who want Ranger.

If the argument for separate entities was to be made, you’re about 6 years too late for it.



Speaking for myself: I’m pleased with the hybrid design. I like BRD wielding a bow and arrow, and I don’t see said weapon being exclusive to a Ranger. So the argument about how Bards can’t be bow wielders seems weak to me. Implementing more harp/flute aspects is perfectly fine. But there’s little need to take the bow away and give it to Ranger. Especially since I think a crossbow would be far more suiting.

[Beddict]

For the job quests, this concept would definitely require an all-new quest line for the Ranger, but where you would be putting in hours to add quests for the “Old” job quest line, you would be reusing the same quest line for Bard, everywhere that you’re adding work on Ranger, you’re taking away work from Bard and vice versa.

It requires far more work than you're thinking. Lets break down what DNC and GNB got this expansion:

1. Designing the theme of the Job and drawing up concept art.
2. Creating Job lore
3. Creating a brand new series of Job quests.
4. Creating a brand new set of Artifact Gear.
5. Creating, animating, and recording new skills and abilities.

Here's what would need to done if separating Bard and Ranger:

1. Designing the theme of Ranger and drawing up concept art.
2. Creating Job lore for Ranger
3. Creating a brand new series of Job quests for Ranger.
4. Creating a brand new set of Artifact Gear for Ranger.
5. Re-designing some of the Primal/Crafted Primal/UCoB/UWU weapons for Ranger because it'd be dumb as balls for the Ranger to be running around with the UWU Artemis Bow which has a harp built into it.
6. Creating and animating new skills and abilities for Ranger.
7. Drawing up new concept art for Bard, including what kind of weapons they would use.
8. Re-writing the Job lore for Bard which retcons the shit out published material.
9. Re-writing the Job quests.
10. Re-designing the Artifact gear for Bard since they're no longer using Bows.
11. Creating all new Primal/UCoB/UWU weapons because you would have a lot of pissed Bards pissed at losing access to gear they earned. Side note, SE didn't even bother making Primal/UCoB/UWU weapons for DNC and GNB because it was too much work.
12. Creating, animating, and recording new skills and abilities.

Are you seriously going to say it's not that much more work than the MCH rework and that SE just needs to plan things better? There is a lot of stuff that would need to be changed.

The biggest mess will stem from the retconned lore, but there is no clean answer for how to correct that.

There is an easy answer, it's called "don't rework the Job".

Amalgamating Archer and Bard together was a huge mistake from 1.2. It never should’ve happened, but we can’t just time travel backwards and undo that, so at some point we’re going to need to make a little mess if we want to appease BOTH the Archers AND the Bards.

Amalgamating Archer and Bard was a conscious design decision by SE. Clearly you didn't read my last post highlighting the current Bard Job Lore so let me repeat what Jehantel said in the level 35 Job quest:

Ever since nations first quarreled, armies have fielded archers wherewith they rained death upon the enemy from afar. As the battle unfolded, however, the distinction between the lines of friend and foe would grow hazy. Yet the archer's part did not end there.
He had to stay ever alert, with arrow nocked and eyes trained upon the struggle.
Even as his comrades fell, turning the earth red with their blood, the archer could ill afford to avert his gaze, lest that moment cost another his life.
One need not have a vivid imagination to appreciate the torrent of emotions that raged within him in that moment.
Nerves near to fraying, his breast fit to burst, the archer did the only thing he could: he sang. His bow became a makeshift instrument, plucked as an accompaniment.
At first, the archer sang only to still the roiling within. But his voice chanced to carry to his comrades. It inspirited those engaged in combat, lending strength to their sword arms. And to those who lay upon the precipice of death, it granted a measure of peace.

If you are a true fan of the Bard aesthetic, why wouldn’t you want that over trying to play tug of war with the Archer players over the current Bard?

Because we’re a fan of the Bard aesthetic that SE created, an Archer who was overcome with emotions when looking at battles from afar and began to use their bow as an instrument. How are you not getting this.

Why settle for a half-assed Bard though? Why are you okay with an Archer who plays a song that slightly buffs the party and is firing arrows the other 95% of the time?

We’re not, that’s why Bards are asking for SE to return some support abilities. Bringing back stuff like Foe Requiem will bring Bard back in line with the Job Lore by keeping them as an Archer who supports their allies through song.

Create a Ranger Stance and a Bard Stance that are both entirely cosmetic, almost like an Egi-Glamour system but with your entire character.

This is an incredibly stupid solution to what shouldn’t even be an issue. Archer was never meant to go into Ranger, it was always meant to go into Bard. Why would they bother wasting time creating an entirely new set of animations just because there are people that don’t like their vision of the their Job.

Because it makes more sense for Ranger to stem from Archer, and also allows for Bards to actually have a Harp weapon instead of a bow.

I cannot stress this enough, read the Job quests for Bard. The Job quests make it very clear why Archers became Bards.

And I am aware of the "make Bard more Bard-like" debate all around, but the reason why it's settling on mediocrity is because archetype of a battle-musician and an archer are not things that have ever been welded together nor do they mix in a way that satisfies the fantasy both camps desire.

Except it does satisfy people. I love the Job that SE created and you’re seriously going to tell me that I’m not satisfied with it? Stop projecting just because it doesn’t satisfy you, and stop suggesting that SE ruin a Job that many people are a fan of. SE can create a separate Ranger Job, that’s perfectly fine, but it shouldn’t come at the cost of what makes Bard unique.