Quote Originally Posted by Akiudo View Post
i second that wholeheartedly. i get where people are coming from if they say bard right now is too much of an archer, i also understand why people may want something like a pure musical bard/pure ranger but i feel like to often people asking for a split like this ignore that theres also a part of the playerbase that likes something as is, at least from a general standpoint.

I mentioned this in another thread where someone mentioned "simply" splitting bard into bard/ranger, i like my bard/ranger as is, as a bowman that uses song to inspire his comrades still alive while lamenting those allready gone. Personally yes, i agree that gutting bards support in favor of dancer (if even that, may aswell have been in favor of bringing physical ranged as a whole down, and have nothing really to do with dancers introduction) was a bad move, and yes i wish current Bard had a bit more "Bard".

But simply deleting this class that saw their comrades fall, couldn't help them with their fight do to the nature and limitations of their fighting style, this class that in their own helplessness started to sing, started to once again help their comrades, this time through giving them hope and inspiration and in exchange giving us 2 completly different classes is a slap to the face for those that actually like the current bard lore.
Honestly, the best way to satisfy this would be to create 2 versions of every action: a ranger version and a bard version. The job would play the same, but players could have the option to take away the bow completely outside of auto attacks, or take the music away completely and make it exclusively about archery. The problem is this is very scope heavy as you'd need 2 animations for everything.

I agree that it's not fair to take away a job people currently like, but I think it's equally unfair that in a game where one of the goals is to allow players to play their favorite Final Fantasy job, a true Ranger and Bard aren't allowed to exist simply because the current "Bard" that was created mashed them together. Someone who's favorite Character was Edward from FFIV, for example, is not allowed to have a playstyle like him period. stop. end of discussion. And yet, in the same game, retaining that traditional experience was so important to the game's identity that Blue Mage isn't allowed to be a real job, because instead of designing it to fit in the game's design like any other job, they felt that doing anything other than importing the job 1-to-1 from FFV would've been sacrilege.