Job change suggestions for BRD in 6.0

[ty_taurus]

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.

[Akiudo]

snip

again though, i don't want either or, i want the middle ground between both, which is what bard in this game was originally (at least by lore) and what i signed up for.

it also begs the question of gameplay, if you truly split them between ranger and bard, even if just in an aesthetics sense you would still have people ask for a "pure dps ranger" aswell as people for whom being actually support heavy would be way more important than "shooting" musical notes instead of arrows.

to be perfectly clear here, its not that i don't understand why people want something like a more traditional bard, or even a pure dps ranger, in fact in a perfect "resources are of no concern, balancing issues are no problem, everyone can be happy" world i would say turn it into 3 classes, make a completly musical bard with support on the level of dancer or even slightly more support heavy, rename the current bard to minstrel, maybe give back foes and also give us a pure dps ranger that drops any kind of support for personal performance with a bow. but obviously we don't live in this kind of perfect "everyone can be happy" world, if we did we would have both, ninja and thief.

tl:dr, i'm not saying a pure bard/ranger shouldn't exist, i'm saying recources are finite, and people that want a pure bard/ranger are too quick too disregard that there are in fact people that like the current "in between" bard we have (or at least bard 15% more towards the "between" direction than we have right now which basically is a glorified ranger allready)

[ty_taurus]

again though, i don't want either or, i want the middle ground between both, which is what bard in this game was originally (at least by lore) and what i signed up for.

it also begs the question of gameplay, if you truly split them between ranger and bard, even if just in an aesthetics sense you would still have people ask for a "pure dps ranger" aswell as people for whom being actually support heavy would be way more important than "shooting" musical notes instead of arrows.

to be perfectly clear here, its not that i don't understand why people want something like a more traditional bard, or even a pure dps ranger, in fact in a perfect "resources are of no concern, balancing issues are no problem, everyone can be happy" world i would say turn it into 3 classes, make a completly musical bard with support on the level of dancer or even slightly more support heavy, rename the current bard to minstrel, maybe give back foes and also give us a pure dps ranger that drops any kind of support for personal performance with a bow. but obviously we don't live in this kind of perfect "everyone can be happy" world, if we did we would have both, ninja and thief.

tl:dr, i'm not saying a pure bard/ranger shouldn't exist, i'm saying recources are finite, and people that want a pure bard/ranger are too quick too disregard that there are in fact people that like the current "in between" bard we have (or at least bard 15% more towards the "between" direction than we have right now which basically is a glorified ranger allready)

But saying "well I don't want a pure ranger or pure bard, I want a ranger/bard hybrid" is disregarding the fact that people actually want that over what we have now. It's a two way street and neither side is "above" one another. Sure the current bard already exists, but as I mentioned, this is supposed to be a huge love letter to Final Fantasy as a series and people who want to play an Edward style Bard or a FFIII/FFV style Ranger should be allowed to have that. Yes, resources are finite which is why I said the problem was a scope issue. You need time and effort to create something where everyone can have everything, but I would say having jobs that call back to their traditional roots with a splash of nuance is as important as retaining balance and job identity.

[Akiudo]

But saying "well I don't want a pure ranger or pure bard, I want a ranger/bard hybrid" is disregarding the fact that people actually want that over what we have now.

who is "people" and what is "what we have now" ? cause "what we have now" is indeed in quite a sad state, but just go back to stormblood and it was in fact universally loved. stormblood bard was neither pure bard nor ranger and "people" loved it.

also what DO people really want ? you say bard/ranger split, but without meaning to offend you here, you are not "people", you have your own idea what you want and you say more people would want your idea instead of what we have but where is your prove for that ? the fact that we have a new split bard into bard/ranger thread every 4 days or so is hardly prove of anything unless you expect people that like the "idea" behind the current bard and are just unhappy with its performance (or even the factual selfishness/support split) to make threads saying "leave bard as is just please give us back foes requiem, but no no music otherwise please, because we know you want to do this but we actually like our archer/bard hybrid."

also what does bard mean to you personally? using music to attack ? buffing the group ? both of these ? also to what degree ? is dancer a good level of support/personal responsibility for this hypothetical bard or would this still be "not enough support, too much personal dps" ?

furthermore, who asked the general playerbase what they even honestly expect from splitting bard/ranger ? i mean sorry but the question what people expect from bard alone would probably give you people that say/want "more support" while actually meaning bard like it was during stormblood and another subset that says "pure music" which would than further get split between people that just want musical attacks and people that actually want more support and musical attacks at the same time. your own proposal of "musical attacks as a toggle" would probably not satisfy half the people that want a true bard if it meant gameplay would stay as is.

also what about ranger ? there are people that want ranger as a pet class or at least using animalistic abilitys, what about them ?these people completly aside, what even WOULD you turn a ranger into right now aside from a bard without any support ? cause that class i would imagine would hardly be beloved by anyone that currently plays bard, pretty sure that subset of players jumped onto machinist long ago.

[ty_taurus]

who is "people" and what is "what we have now" ? cause "what we have now" is indeed in quite a sad state, but just go back to stormblood and it was in fact universally loved. stormblood bard was neither pure bard nor ranger and "people" loved it.

also what DO people really want ? you say bard/ranger split, but without meaning to offend you here, you are not "people", you have your own idea what you want and you say more people would want your idea instead of what we have but where is your prove for that ? the fact that we have a new split bard into bard/ranger thread every 4 days or so is hardly prove of anything unless you expect people that like the "idea" behind the current bard and are just unhappy with its performance (or even the factual selfishness/support split) to make threads saying "leave bard as is just please give us back foes requiem, but no no music otherwise please, because we know you want to do this but we actually like our archer/bard hybrid."

If I'm being honest, I find the whole "who is 'people'..." thing very condescending. You have evidence in this very thread of people saying they wish that the job would split. Those are the "people" I'm talking about, and yet your statement comes across as very "well who ACTUALLY wants that anyway?" You keep acting like you deserve the bard you want more than any other player and assume I'm doing the same in reverse when I've stated before that all of us deserve the bard or ranger we want equally.

also what does bard mean to you personally? using music to attack ? buffing the group ? both of these ? also to what degree ? is dancer a good level of support/personal responsibility for this hypothetical bard or would this still be "not enough support, too much personal dps" ?

furthermore, who asked the general playerbase what they even honestly expect from splitting bard/ranger ? i mean sorry but the question what people expect from bard alone would probably give you people that say/want "more support" while actually meaning bard like it was during stormblood and another subset that says "pure music" which would than further get split between people that just want musical attacks and people that actually want more support and musical attacks at the same time. your own proposal of "musical attacks as a toggle" would probably not satisfy half the people that want a true bard if it meant gameplay would stay as is.

also what about ranger ? there are people that want ranger as a pet class or at least using animalistic abilitys, what about them ?these people completly aside, what even WOULD you turn a ranger into right now aside from a bard without any support ? cause that class i would imagine would hardly be beloved by anyone that currently plays bard, pretty sure that subset of players jumped onto machinist long ago.

Well if you turn back a few pages, you'd see the idea of a FF14 bard that I think would be a reasonable change all things considered--a bard that has a defined window of almost exclusive archery and an equal defined window of almost exclusive music. That's along the lines of the best we can realistically hope for, but if you want to know what I interpret as specifically a DPS bard, this is the example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMf6NdM55ws

THAT would be a DPS bard in my opinion, using music to attack and support. And if we did get a true-to-its-name bard, then yes I would want the player base who want a defined Archer/Ranger to have their own job as well.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: There are players who like the ranger/bard hybrid, there are players who want a dedicated bard, and there are players who want a dedicated ranger. All of us are equally deserving of the things we want, either because it's not fair to rip away an existing job that's been created from the people who enjoy or because it's not fair to the players who want to play a Final Fantasy Bard or Ranger in the modern MMO Final Fantasy to have to kiss their dream jobs goodbye because of some awkward decision making that occured back in 1.0 that stapled the two jobs together at the hip.