Bard's Thematic Future

[MartaDemireux]

I’d say the opinions of those who have stuck with a job for years carries a bit more weight than opinions from someone who picked it up two months ago and decided they want it completely overhauled to satisfy their desires, or opinions from those of whom don’t even play the job.

Do we know how long that person played BRD, though? We do not. Even a character search would be fruitless as it could be a 2nd account.

I've personally played ARC since the first days of 1.0 and can still see merit in every idea presented, there are no bad ideas here. Some more feasible than others but it is not right to rip into eachother over your differing opinions. The ARC players should be striving to find middle grounds and good, new ideas to present to SE - not getting stuck in bickering over the negative parts.

You hate every part of their idea? Okay that's fine, try to find a way to make their idea likable to you. That's how we create. That's how we provide constructive criticism. That's how we make changes.

[SaitoHikari]

Do we know how long that person played BRD, though? We do not. Even a character search would be fruitless as it could be a 2nd account.

I've personally played ARC since the first days of 1.0 and can still see merit in every idea presented, there are no bad ideas here. Some more feasible than others but it is not right to rip into eachother over your differing opinions. The ARC players should be striving to find middle grounds and good, new ideas to present to SE - not getting stuck in bickering over the negative parts.

You hate every part of their idea? Okay that's fine, try to find a way to make their idea likable to you. That's how we create. That's how we provide constructive criticism. That's how we make changes.

Normally, I would agree.

But what's being proposed here amounts to literally toppling over 6+ years worth of established lore, development effort, and class communities. Some people choose to ignore that for reasons, and there's no real middle ground for such things.

It's really not something that will ever happen, and no developer worth their salt will ever take this kind of proposal seriously, when there's already precedent in this very game that they won't do similar things for cases that are supposedly much easier to implement such ideas already.

[HyoMinPark]

Do we know how long that person played BRD, though? We do not. Even a character search would be fruitless as it could be a 2nd account.

I've personally played ARC since the first days of 1.0 and can still see merit in every idea presented, there are no bad ideas here. Some more feasible than others but it is not right to rip into eachother over your differing opinions. The ARC players should be striving to find middle grounds and good, new ideas to present to SE - not getting stuck in bickering over the negative parts.

You hate every part of their idea? Okay that's fine, try to find a way to make their idea likable to you. That's how we create. That's how we provide constructive criticism. That's how we make changes.

My arguments here are against those who advocate gutting the existing BRD in order to give them what they want. It comes off as inherently selfish to make all of these suggestions for Ranger or Musician all at the expense of the current BRD’s gameplay/design. Because it gives the impression that those making them don’t care what happens to the job or how those who play it feel so long as they get theirs. As I said to ty_taurus: I don’t care if they put in Ranger or Musician or Flautist or whatever. But don’t advocate for the destruction of my BRD to do it.

[Mahrze]

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I think there's less of an issue about who's opinion is worth more than to simply as a collective appreciate the good points and disregard the bad ones if said bad ones have no rhyme nor reason.


Obsessing over who's opinion has more weight due to content won't lead anyone anywhere.

[Rika007]

Yeah I'm sorry but no, any idea of removing BRD's bow aesthetic, changing the original Archer to Bard transition and giving it to Ranger, turning Bard into a completely separate job on it's own is going to be a hard no from me fam. Other people have been saying it in far nicer ways, but this is my Bard, I've put in the time, gained an identity and history to my character on it. You want Ranger, fine. You can have Ranger. But make it your own job. I love my hybrid Bard. I love the idea of singing a song that brings out my buddies inner super saiyan, then putting an arrow between the eyes of some fool who thought he could step up to me.

The hilarious thing is I remember I used to feel the same way. When I first started playing this game in 2.0, I felt baited when I got to 30 and suddenly found out that this Legolas styled archer I was building up in my head was suddenly getting her Karaoke on. But as time has gone by I've grown to appreciate what SE did with Bard in XIV. I never would have even considered Bard as an option if it had been the first job offered to me. Heck I left Edward out of my party in IV. But instead XIV gave it a whole new aesthetic, it made me appreciate being more then just being the Pew pew archer, and made me value being a a better team player. In short SE made Bard cool to me, and because of it I started giving BRD a shot in other things. Hell I'm a Bard in my DnD campaign now, after considering it a worthless class for years.

So nah. Current Bard is fine with it's 'thematic future'. Just needs some of its 4.0 mojo back. Give me back my support suite from Stormblood, or just a few tools then expand more upon its in 6.0. You want ranger? Cool. Ask for Ranger then. I bet a really cool ranger could be built using crossbows or Greatbows, maybe even with a secondary throwing hatchet as an a secondary arm, we could use a DPS with a secondary arm. You want a pure music class? Sure, lets have that. X2's songstress could make an awesome healer or caster in this game.

But stay away from my hybrid job. Their is nothing wrong with Bard being both a baller musician and a bad ass archer at the same time.

[Atamis]

Boy theres some heated discussion going on now, but i think it is a very needed one. If theres not a stink coming from the bards, it would be business as usual and it would just be more ping pong between ranger-bards and bard-rangers. I realize those of you who identify as Bard want to revert back to previous incarnations and build off that, especially now with Dancer showing off how well it can go. I think the Ranger half of us is primarily scared SE will give in. That the ranger half will be sacrificed for more Bard related stuff, which is perfectly fair. The Bard concept has existed longer than Archer at this point, but it still feels like there the possibility of losing what we just now have gained.

Splitting Archer off from bard doesn't mean you have to take the bow or the concepts away. It just means another ranged dps gets born. I advocated starting at 30 and possible requiring having Archer at 30 before the quests pops up just so people don't feel obligated to level bard to 70 just to continue the archer archtype, but admittedly that is a moot concern, as anyone wanting to level Dancer or Machinist are already obligated to level something that isn't that to get there. Just glamouring it away isn't a working solution. That is just a skin deep bandage and wouldn't wash away all the bard themed AF gears or the quests. This is clearly a battle of aesthetics as none of the bards are willing to just go to Dancer who does everything bard used to do, but better and none of the Rangers are willing to move to Machinist who are also physical ranged dps who shoot things. In theory they could Use those Rifle models they have lying around taunting everyone, but would this satisfy the Archer archtype?

I think both sides of the Archer need to ask for a Ranger. The bards need to sing up a storm that they are unhappy with the current bard, and the Archers need to sing equally loud that they are unhappy that their job ends at lv30.

Yes adding another class would be work. Adding any class is work, but that is what we pay them to do. That is what they have opened up a cash shop for. Its not like they have to reinvent everything all over again to fullfill another Archer type job, there is plenty of resources through the FF series to cobble together something of a Ranger. Ranger has been a semi staple class since FF3, and the basic Archer being there since FF2. Limiting it to just Bard and Bard thematics is really just limiting themselves in designs. No pets are needed. Thematically it just need to shoot arrows with doseage of outdoorsmanship, if they expand to the other Ranger related jobs throughout the series this expands much more. Hunters and Snipers from FF Tactics Advanced have enough abilities between them to field a usable Ranger and provide an AF gear set that bard would never get simply because its not bardy enough.

Simply put, Bards stand to lose nothing from just losing the Ranger side of them.

[HyoMinPark]

Splitting Archer off from bard doesn't mean you have to take the bow or the concepts away. It just means another ranged dps gets born. I advocated starting at 30 and possible requiring having Archer at 30 before the quests pops up just so people don't feel obligated to level bard to 70 just to continue the archer archtype, but admittedly that is a moot concern, as anyone wanting to level Dancer or Machinist are already obligated to level something that isn't that to get there.

If Ranger is ever added, it will not start at level 30, nor will it split off from Archer in an ARC > RNG / ARC > BRD sort of deal like ACN > SMN / SCN > SCH. The developers have repeatedly stated that they will never do another job split—that they regret splitting ACN into SMN and SCH—and new job precedent has all new jobs starting at 20 levels below level cap, not at level 30; that was in HW only, and was abandoned quickly in both SB and ShB. Making a fuss about ARC not continuing into Ranger at level 30 won’t do much, because the developers have their formulae for new content (which includes the jobs), and I think we all know that they stick to it at this point in the game’s life cycle.

[Atamis]

If Ranger is ever added, it will not start at level 30, nor will it split off from Archer in an ARC > RNG / ARC > BRD sort of deal like ACN > SMN / SCN > SCH.

I realize this. This is not what i am saying. The SMN/SCH thing is that they are LINKED by their sub class of Arcanist. If you level Summoner, your arcanist level goes up and thus your Scholar also gains a level and their spaghetti code apparently does something that also links what abilities they can learn(Or so it has been cited as the reason SMN physicks suck so hard and why Aetherflow can't be changed on one or the other). What i said was simply requiring you to have archer at 30 before the quest unlocks the same way you need to be lv 60 in any DoW/M class before Dancer or Gunbreaker unlocks, its just a more restrictive unlock. It is indeed completely unnecessary and can safely be ignored.
Same with the level. I just put it there because in theory thats when it would split from Archer and someone who is new could pick it up and continue their ranger adventure. While yes there is precedent for them to start 20 levels below the current xpac, that doesn't mean its a rule. They want to roll out a new game plus mode, and what better way then to bait a few people to do it with a class they could level doing it all over again at lv30. It too can safely be ignored for the sake of mediocrity and convenience.
I for one truly didn't mind the old job unlock system requiring paladins to get CNJ to 15 before they could advance. It was just another victim of dumbing down the game to appeal to the lowest denominator.

[HyoMinPark]

Same with the level. I just put it there because in theory thats when it would split from Archer and someone who is new could pick it up and continue their ranger adventure. While yes there is precedent for them to start 20 levels below the current xpac, that doesn't mean its a rule. They want to roll out a new game plus mode, and what better way then to bait a few people to do it with a class they could level doing it all over again at lv30. It too can safely be ignored for the sake of mediocrity and convenience.

Their precedents are generally equivalent to rule when it comes to FFXIV in my opinion, especially when there has been no deviation from any of the formulae the developers use for content in 6 years. A Ranger job will be level 70 if added in 6.0, level 80 if added in 7.0, Level 90 if added in 8.0, etc.. As for New Game+, I haven’t heard anything about it offering experience. The Shadowbringers product page lists New Game+ as a feature that “will allow for replay of previously completed quests while retaining one’s current progression and job level”—the “retaining one’s current progression and job level” doesn’t really imply that players can earn experience from utilizing the feature.

As for the old cross-class system, I don’t really consider it “dumbing down” or “catering to the lowest denominator” to remove the requirement to level a separate class to level 15 just to progress further with one’s chosen class/job. And I did that for ALL the jobs that required it. It was just removing a clunky feature. Same with the cross-class > role skill system. It wasn’t exactly riveting or even challenging to level THM to 26 just so my WHM could have Swiftcast.

[ty_taurus]

I’d say the opinions of those who have stuck with a job for years carries a bit more weight than opinions from someone who picked it up two months ago and decided they want it completely overhauled to satisfy their desires, or opinions from those of whom don’t even play the job.



Because it’s an Archer-Bard hybrid. Because of its lore in this game. I suggest you go and read Beddict’s last post to you, which nicely outlined the evolution the developers gave Archer as it journeys and transitions into Bard. The job is a hybrid job.

You haven’t really been advocating for a musician-style job. At least, not in any positive way. As I pointed out prior, your suggestion for Musician involved gutting Bard, which people are advocating against. This is in addition to your Bard/Ranger split discussion a few posts back, which, again, guts the existing job. Every suggestion you make is to give you what you want; but you don’t stop to consider what others want. And it comes off, to me at least, as if you don’t care what happens to Bard or how those who want to make it more BRD-y feel so long as you get what you want. It’s selfish.

I don’t care if they want to add Musician or Ranger or whatever. But don’t destroy my job to do so. And that’s ultimately what your suggestions do, which is why I’m arguing against them.

If all I wanted to do was fight for what I want and ONLY what I want, I wouldn't even be talking about Ranger. I would just demand Bard drop the bow and pick up literally any instrument on the face of the earth. It can be a Triangle for all I care, or maybe a Didgeridoo, as long as it has some at least vague semblance of a connection with music. But I don't want to rob the Archer from the players who want to be marksmen sniping their enemies with arrows. I want both camps to have the job they dream of: A lethal archer able to plant an arrow between the eyes of a fiend halfway across the room AND a prodigious musician using the power of their voice and their instrument alone to tear their enemies apart while occasionally supplying their allies with melodic power.

Keeping this weird Hybrid that can't really commit to either has caused a lot of grief for players who want both these styles, and has been since 1.2. If some people have come to accept it as a job then I can understand that, but the frustration will still be there because Bard's existence essentially destroys any hope of both camps being completely satisfied. So long as it exists, there will likely never be a real musician job, and the fight for it will always make Square feel obligated to include some aspects of music that Archer players didn't sign up for.

Maybe things could be different if the design went in the direction of a 50/50 split between the bow and the harp, but as of now, it has never even been close. 4.0 Bard was still only barely a musician. The songs were a great step in the right direct, but they were the stepping stones of the job, not the apex of it. The Apex of Bard is and always has been attacks of Archery like Refulgent Arrow, and now appropriately Apex Arrow. If having this unholy amalgamation of Archer/Bard will absolutely prevent a real Bard from ever existing, then at least trying to make their combination more even would be a start.