#Divergence - Impact on Bards

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

daring jasper
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Hey all! I think I mistakenly derailed a separate thread because of this topic (sorry!), so I wanted to move the discussion here where it is more appropriate.

I understand the changes to bards in divergence as they are laid out on paper, but I don't think I grasp the full mechanical impact of those changes. For instance, what has changed about how bards hunt in divergence zones, and what specific issues do they face there? Are bards unable to hunt in certain areas due to the changes, or are they just a little slower? Do the changes only affect bards within a particular XP range (e.g. they are not as big a concern at a certain point post-cap)? That sort of thing.

My curiosity stems purely from seeing how many people appear to be extremely upset by divergence (and its effect on bards in particular?), so I would love to get some concrete numbers / examples that will give me some perspective. Thanks very much!

stable hazel
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you can make/take a bard on test into one of the divergence areas and see the impacts directly. Otherwise there's been months of discussion on the topic in the #893166883568775268 thread

daring jasper
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Since I don't play a bard, I'm not sure I would be able to glean much from spending time on test - I feel like big issues don't usually become apparent until you've had a lot of time with a particular profession.

The reason I started this thread was because it's rather challenging to read months of backlogged Discord messages. 😅 I was hoping some folks here could boil it down for me. I'm sure we have capped bards lurking about that know exactly how divergence has affected them.

cobalt phoenix
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This was a genuine request for information to increase understanding and it does not deserve the reaction it has gotten.

Dinaden and I have squared him away privately and answered his questions.

The hateful emojis are ridiculous. Knock it off.

stable hazel
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I'm not sure what reaction you are referring to, since I'm the only one who commented you must be referring to me. I also don't see any hateful emojis, but perhaps they were removed.
I don't know this person or their frame of reference. There's literally months worth of information and feedback to sift through and almost any commentary I offered would be met by one of the usual crowd saying I'm wrong. It's also a bit much, I feel, to ask someone to give a summary of an entire thread that has existed for months rather than that person skimming it themselves.
Rather than return to those circular arguments and recreate the bard related topics in the divergence thread, I pointed them to that thread and offered a method they may not have been aware of for first hand feedback.
I'd happily offer my perspective on any specifics.

daring jasper
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It's all good. I think I have a pretty good grasp of the issues now (thanks Darcena / Dinaden!).

I think the hateful emoji is the bowl/spoon that was put on the thread itself. I assume it was meant to indicate "requires spoon-feeding"? But I'm not certain.

stable hazel
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I would say the summary is probably this: I don't think the only people who dislike divergence are bards. Bards have said their toolkit is really lacking in areas and weak on DS for ages. Bard training feels very uncomplete, particularly for melee bards. The game claims its a core ability but creature CS, 1035 change, redux, etc... all feel like they don't support.
So many bards feel like 1030/1035 are the only reliable options their class has, so when those get nerfed, it feels particularly bad.
The flare rate change, but only on unscripted flares- a la those that are sold for cash, feel particularly distasteful and a double whammy.
All in all though, doing the nerfs before the class review feels particularly bad, especially in an environment where there's no carrot or anything to make the balance concerns we were told were necessary in the first place to occur. HW has been out over a year, as an example, and players feel that its going to be years, if ever, for the current review workload and incentives to be realized.

daring jasper
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I see, and that makes sense. So if I'm understanding correctly, the nerfs to Tonis and SD wouldn't be so bad if the profession review was right on their heels and solved the problem of bards being reliant on 1030/1035 in the first place. But having only the nerfs while the review is on indefinite hold is a bitter pill to swallow.

Oh, this is a side question but:

The flare rate change, but only on unscripted flares- a la those that are sold for cash, feel particularly distasteful and a double whammy.

The wiki says:

Proc rates on standard flares are reduced, inclusive of script-based flares that utilize standard Cat B damage types.

I took that to mean that most script flares were included in the reduced proc rates, so long as their damage type was something typical for Cat B. e.g. animalistic flares are a script but still do fire, lightning, etc. and would thus be affected. Is that correct (or is the wiki out of date)?

river magnet
# daring jasper Hey all! I think I mistakenly derailed a separate thread because of this topic ...

My take is that two things are particularly crucial to note:

  1. Players judge the game by their individual experiences. (This can also include hunting with others and seeing how their friends perform, for example.)

  2. Staff at least appears to judge the game by the aggregate player experience and/or peak player experience.

So, in a sense, you're not necessarily asking the right questions. When you ask...
Are bards unable to hunt in certain areas due to the changes, or are they just a little slower?
...the answer is yes. Some bards are unable to hunt in certain areas. Others are just a little slower.

What does it depend on? Gear, build, exp, race, preferred playstyle, all kinds of things. Even reaction time and typing speed factor in given how quickly some of the Ascension creatures move. It also depends on someone's definition of "unable to hunt."

All of this might sound like I'm obfuscating to make it seem like my bard is worse off than she is, but actually my bard is my third best if not second best character in the Hinterwilds. (Definitely behind my ranger and maybe behind Leafi, but ahead of the rest and it's not close. I will say my paladin used to be better than my bard there before the 140 nerf.)

What I'm getting at is that people are upset over a subjective, individual, lived bard experience created by a mechanical change that was implemented in response to the overall bard experience or the ceiling thereof.

Translating that down from abstraction, 1030 being OP for a 2x spells bard is meaningless to a 1x spells bard, yet nonetheless the latter took a hit too. As Erek has put it, tuning against extremes hurts the average joe.

Now, arguably 1030 is still OP at 1x--but, again, this is beside the point that things are driven by perception. If staff says that bards are doing just fine in Divergence areas and several players say their bards are unplayable there, both can be telling the truth from their perspective and definitions.

stable hazel
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That's a great way to explain it Leafi. I would only add that the same thing exists for the 1035/physical bard side.

river magnet
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Yeah, I ran up against character limit, but agreed. Basically, 1035 enabled all sorts of options that weren't using best-in-class weapon bases, but the hit came to them just as much if not more than the mechanical best options. Then came the revisions trying to accommodate for that, like tweaks to base RT, minimum RT, and flare rates because there are so many angles to consider.

Edit: Actually, wait, let me not undersell the effect on even strong weapon bases by not mentioning them. Even in cases like that, 2-second lance swings are 150% as good as 3-second lance swings, just for example, and speed was kind of what got bards got by on. This is due to poor spiritual TD, which is the most common type of creature CS spell, not particularly great elemental TD either for that matter, and not having the heavy armor fallback of paladins.

daring jasper