Bard's Thematic Future

[MPNZ]

IMO, they need to realize that there is no "inbetween" and just DPS-Support hybrid or selfish. DNC is way too weak, and BRD needs to feel like it's doing more support / interaction with songs, buffs, synergy et cetera. And they need to complete the merged BRD/RNG job concept. MCH looks great, please

[ForteNightshade]

There is precisely zero possibility they covert Bard into Ranger at this stage. The undertaking would require a massive reworking for something ultimately not really worth the endeavour. Instead of a new job, we'd essentially have two halves rebuilt. Furthermore, Bard from previous FFs will not work in this game because it has to be a damage dealer. It essentially becomes Dancer... which means now you wield a Harp in lieu of a bow and maybe have a few more buffs. But at the end of the day, you're a DPS who is expected to DPS. Regardless, even if this were under some consideration, it's extremely unlikely they release another physical Range.

[MartaDemireux]

There is precisely zero possibility they covert Bard into Ranger at this stage. The undertaking would require a massive reworking for something ultimately not really worth the endeavour. Instead of a new job, we'd essentially have two halves rebuilt. Furthermore, Bard from previous FFs will not work in this game because it has to be a damage dealer. It essentially becomes Dancer... which means now you wield a Harp in lieu of a bow and maybe have a few more buffs. But at the end of the day, you're a DPS who is expected to DPS. Regardless, even if this were under some consideration, it's extremely unlikely they release another physical Range.

I have to disagree. 4 tanks, 4 melee, 3 healers, 3 ranged, 3 casters (4 if you count BLU). Adding a healer and a ranged would balance the roles out a bit.

Additionally, changing BRD to RNG would only require new quests, 7 animation changes and no balance adjustments in it's current form. RNG in the series did have very small amounts of defensive support, usually in the form of animals. Then, adding a new BRD from the ground up would focus on songs and could, hear me out, even be a healer.

Minnes in the series were defensive songs (could be HP shields), Paeons were heals and HoTs, Requiems were damage and DoTs, Goddess' Hymnus resurrected, Lullaby is present as Repose, Nightingale/Troubadour from XI are equivalent to Lightspeed/Presence of Mind. They could have a feature where the more they sing (heals and damage), the more their Soul Voice fills up (similar to fairy gauge) and they can use that gauge for party buffs like Minuet (similar to lily gauge, balanced with AST buffs) with a song that they can sing that builds the gauge during downtime like DNC but also provides group mitigation. There's a plethora of songs in the series that can fill in any unique buffs or mechanics, really.

I'm not saying that it is likely or even the best option for BRD, just that there are absolutely viable possibilities and solutions available to get a BRD whose focus is on songs. I'd personally welcome even a drastic change as this to get a BRD who sings.

[SaitoHikari]

Additionally, changing BRD to RNG would only require new quests, 7 animation changes and no balance adjustments in it's current form.

You guys act like this is simple. It's not. Bard's skill set was already gutted this expansion to the point where we have an inexplicable 12 level gap between level 18 and 30 where we don't get any new skills at all. I'm not sure what a split would even achieve on top of that, assuming the devs actually do it.

For everyone who thinks this is actually feasible, I challenge you to come up with a list of skills/traits for the split classes from level 1-80. As someone who spent literal days coming up with those kinds of suggestions in my previous MMO, it's nowhere near as easy as you think. The vast majority of them turned out bad, wouldn't play very well in hindsight, or were straight up overpowered in hindsight. And I say this as someone that already tried to come up with a way to split Archer into Ranger and Bard, only to come to the conclusion that it isn't feasible development-wise. It'd entail designing a new set of weapons, a whole new quest series along with re-writing the current Bard quests (when the developers didn't even bother making a new series of job quests this expansion and just stuck them at level 80).

That's on top of trying to rebalance Ranger around all the other DPS AND balancing a theoretical healer Bard against all the other healers at the same time. Oh, and maybe ticking off a lot of the current Bard players who probably won't like how the new Ranger plays, and accusations from the Chemist/Geomancer fans and Healers in general that the devs are so lazy that they would rather split an existing class to make a new healer, instead of making an entirely new class from scratch. It's enough of a miracle that SB Bard was as well-received as it was.

Bard already gets overhauled every expansion, I'd rather not keep that meme going. The devs won't even fully split Scholar and Summoner despite them openly admitting that joining them together was a mistake for years, a Bard split isn't going to happen and I'd rather we focus our efforts on realistic suggestions.

[Beddict]

Bard's skill set was already gutted this expansion to the point where we have an inexplicable 12 level gap between level 18 and 30 where we don't get any new skills at all.

That 12 level gap already existed back in SB since the level 22 Swiftsong and the level 26 Hawk's Eye were removed. You're right on the money with everything else though. It would be a stupid amount of work to separate Bard and Ranger, not to mention it would involve severely retconning the hell out out Job Lore that's been established for the past 6+ years, including already published material like Encyclopedia Eorzea. The level 30 through 50 Job quests are all about the Archer becoming a Bard, the level 50 through 60 Job quests are all about finding the Ballad of Oblivion to convice the Adders to train Archers as Bards. They just going to rewrite the premise the all those Job quests? And that's to say nothing about developing an entirely new Job lore for the proposed Ranger, the effects of punting Bard into a different role, etc. It's genuinely confusing to see people write off as simple or "oh they just need to do this" when really it would be a massive amount of work to do something they already don't like doing.

Bard is currently a bit lacking thematically since they removed some of our support abilities, but to say it's a random mash-up of conflicting themes would do well to re-read what Jehantel says in the level 35 Bard 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.

The Job identity is there, the lore and the quests support it, it's only the gameplay that is currently lacking. Splitting Bard into a separate Bard and Ranger Job is a terrible idea and it would piss off a fair chunk of people, myself included. I get that there are people upset about not having a Ranger, and I get that there are people upset about not having a Bard strumming a lute, but gutting Bard isn't the answer.

[MartaDemireux]

For everyone who thinks this is actually feasible, I challenge you to come up with a list of skills/traits for the split classes from level 1-80.

You're misinterpreting. When it comes to a split, we're (or at least I am) saying that Bard as it is can be Ranger. All that is needed is swapping out existing song animations for animals, poisons, traps, etc. The current gameplay would translate 100%. There is no need to rebalance Ranger as it wouldn't be gaining or losing any actual abilities, just changing animations. Like how changing Ifrit Egi into any of the 3 Carbuncles doesn't change his abilities or potencies.

Instead of Warden's Paean to remove a debuff, it could be Leech (akin to FFTA2). Instead of Troubadour to reduce damage, it could be Camouflage (XI). Instead of Nature's Minne for enhanced HP recovery, it could be related to woodland creatures (akin to !Animals from FFV). Instead of Pitch Perfect, it could be Eagle Eye Shot (from XI). Instead of 3 Songs and repertoire they could use for example 3 different types of Traps, still have their ticks generated by wind/venom bites, all unchanged, just animations and theme. Nearly all arrow attacks would be unchanged even in animation. Exact same gameplay, just a new name, Ranger, and 7 or 8 animations changed out for different ones.

Then they devs would only be adding in 1 new job, Bard, to balance against the others in whatever its designated role should be. This would be no more or less of an endeavor than adding in any other new job except as far as lore. But, even then the SCH job quests are handled by a Marauder - so the actual amount of lore changing need not change by much at all. The reason I suggested healer before was simply to show that BRD needn't be a DPS, it has songs for either role and is flexible in that. Plus, BRD as healer doesn't step on anyones toes as GEO would with CNJ/AST lore, or CHM could with ALC/MCH (not to mention they tried to add CHM for HW but found it too difficult, instead splitting it into AST and MCH). But that's getting off topic lol.

[ty_taurus]

There is precisely zero possibility they covert Bard into Ranger at this stage. The undertaking would require a massive reworking for something ultimately not really worth the endeavour. Instead of a new job, we'd essentially have two halves rebuilt. Furthermore, Bard from previous FFs will not work in this game because it has to be a damage dealer. It essentially becomes Dancer... which means now you wield a Harp in lieu of a bow and maybe have a few more buffs. But at the end of the day, you're a DPS who is expected to DPS. Regardless, even if this were under some consideration, it's extremely unlikely they release another physical Range.

No one said anything about an actual Bard not DPSing. It's really not impossible for a musical job to be a DPS heavy participant and I don't understand why everyone assumes a harp-wielding class would have no feasible move set other than exclusively buffing. Need an example?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMf6NdM55ws

Furthermore, it's literally about the same amount of work as adding in 1 new job.

Ranger adopts the identity current Bard has, so most of what Ranger would consist of would be inherited from what we already have, so it wouldn't be any different from the usual changes each job goes through in an expansion. The big thing would be adding in the job quests, but while Bard would be added as the real new class between the two, it would just inherit the current Bard job quests, so it wouldn't be adding more work at all. You'd still be updating 1 existing set of abilities, adding in 1 new set of abilities for a new job, and creating 1 set of job quests. The only thing extra would be that you'd need to make quests starting from level 30, not level 70, but that's really not that much work.

Bard would essentially be 1 of the 2 new jobs, having a completely different weapon type and ability set, and it could absolutely be a DPS unit. It could be another support-heavy DPS like Dancer as a foil to it (For example, it could have its major support not stack with Dancer, so having both would be suboptimal as is having 2 Dancers). It could also be another Caster. Just look at the clip of Deuce's abilities. Yeah, she has support, but they take a back seat to her fantastic damaging abilities.

[HyoMinPark]

Furthermore, it's literally about the same amount of work as adding in 1 new job.

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.

[Suniva]

Ranger adopts the identity current Bard has, so most of what Ranger would consist of would be inherited from what we already have, so it wouldn't be any different from the usual changes each job goes through in an expansion. The big thing would be adding in the job quests, but while Bard would be added as the real new class between the two, it would just inherit the current Bard job quests, so it wouldn't be adding more work at all. You'd still be updating 1 existing set of abilities, adding in 1 new set of abilities for a new job, and creating 1 set of job quests. The only thing extra would be that you'd need to make quests starting from level 30, not level 70, but that's really not that much work.

Bard would essentially be 1 of the 2 new jobs, having a completely different weapon type and ability set, and it could absolutely be a DPS unit. It could be another support-heavy DPS like Dancer as a foil to it (For example, it could have its major support not stack with Dancer, so having both would be suboptimal as is having 2 Dancers). It could also be another Caster. Just look at the clip of Deuce's abilities. Yeah, she has support, but they take a back seat to her fantastic damaging abilities.

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.

On another note, if trying to salvage Bard is THAT much of a lost cause for people... why not just abandon it entirely?

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.

[Suniva]

I play a bard because I WANT to be a bard.
I don't want to be a ranger.
I want to be a BARD.

Please leave my bard alone. Petition for a new ranged class (hunter/ranger) whatever you would like to call it. But please, I enjoy bard for bard and I don't want to see the class have ANOTHER identity crisis in 6.0.