Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

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Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby Teron » Fri Jul 22, 2016 10:43 am

This is a continuation of a single point from another thread.

Here's how I propose to scale bard songs with charisma, with gods of war as an example:

- 10 charisma: gods of war is 8 damage, 0 ppl bonus
- 12 charisma: gods of war is 9 damage, 0 ppl bonus
- 14 charisma: gods of war is 10 damage, 1 ppl bonus
- 16 charisma: gods of war is 11 damage, 1 ppl bonus
- 18 charisma: gods of war is 12 damage, 2 ppl bonus
- 20 charisma: gods of war is 13 damage, 2 ppl bonus (current cap at 1x40)
- 22 charisma: gods of war is 14 damage, 3 ppl bonus
- 24 charisma: gods of war is 15 damage, 3 ppl bonus (bard cap at 5x40)
- 26 charisma: gods of war is 16 damage, 4 ppl bonus
- 28 charisma: gods of war is 17 damage, 4 ppl bonus (supposed 9x40 cap)
- 30 charisma: gods of war is 18 damage, 5 ppl bonus
- 32 charisma: gods of war is 19 damage, 5 ppl bonus
- 32 charisma: gods of war is 20 damage, +6 ppl bonus
- 34 charisma: gods of war is 21 damage, +6 ppl bonus (33charisma= all ingame charisma eq, runes and +3char robe)
- 36 charisma: gods of war is 22 damage, +7 ppl bonus (+3 bonus charisma)
You can only hit overcap charisma you can only get with +bonus charisma drachma eq.

Also do remember that bards may want to use any other charisma to replace low ac items, such as the lillies wreath or jovian armplates or a held low +charisma item, with high ac or other items (damage/healbonus).
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby Hung » Mon Jul 25, 2016 1:54 pm

I'll write here my bards buffing suggestions.
I'll start from stating the fact that a bard is the weakest prime class. My 3x40 cleric(which is not strongest class either) easily does two times more xp solo than my 5x40 bard. Therefore even serious bard's buff wont break the balance.
One of such buff had been proposed in the previous post.

I'd go from other side and suggest introducing a prime bard weapon, which will also make weapon fighting more useful for bards.
I dont think buffing it with only with charisma/song target/song length would be make it useful, unless Taron's suggestions will got approved and the charisma will become useful again.
So I'll again suggest to buff it with 50% parry. I know the suggestion to deprime the parry skill had been declined. But maybe it'll work only for the prime bards.
Another approach would be to add 50% parry to the effect of 'knights prayer' song(prime only avatar 6th bard song), which will make that song useful.

Also a smaller buff suggestion is to make counterattack work against ether when song of the mist is on. It would make sense after latest change that allow warriors to parry ether with spiritual hammers.

Thanks again, Teker, for hearing us. And sorry for swarming you so much with posts.
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby *juggleblood* » Tue Jul 26, 2016 12:23 pm

Seems out of place to worry about Bard solo xp when it's a class explicitly designed to complement a group by affecting others. I could think of many ways to improve the bard class, none of which would be related to achieving solo xp.

Their solo ability comes from the other classes. For example sochi can do basic grip/blast, or can sing at necropets, or can shapeshift. I'm not saying solo xp is a great strategy, but then if you want to do awesome solo xp, why not make a thief, monk, or mage?
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby Hung » Tue Jul 26, 2016 3:39 pm

Well, I've made a cleric. And found out that despite being group class too it is not bad at solo xp(about two times better than bard).
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby *juggleblood* » Tue Jul 26, 2016 7:21 pm

You think lategame cleric solo's better unshifted than using makara, mymecoleon, phoenix, etc...?

Get Kid a couple more 40's and your druid forms' solo power will outshine what a cleric can do.
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby Hung » Tue Jul 26, 2016 7:47 pm

Yes, I think so. Cleric's main solo xp power is aerial. Which works great when doing magestyle xp. So I think clerics will keep being superior, because blast power rises with avatar levels.
Dark mace is also very helpful in magestyle xp as many of such mobs are ether and/or undead. And dark mace power also rises with levels.
Not mentioning special cleric mobs that are damaged by healing.
Finally cl/drs (and druid second is very popular choice among clerics) have access to makara too.
Certainly druid forms are powerful. However bard prime skills can't offer much to empower it even more. Also not all bards have druid close in the class order. There are multiple ba/wa. And I wanted to suggest something that all prime bards will benefit from.
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby *juggleblood* » Tue Jul 26, 2016 10:16 pm

If we expressing all our code wishes at this time then I'd go on about how much I hate no-fly tunnels or rather the inability to simply stop flying at will. And I'd beg for selective dispel as a mage skill. But if wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak.
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby Teron » Wed Jul 27, 2016 3:09 am

Hey, I've ideased the custom dispel ages ago. It shouldn't be too hard to code, I'd imagine (we already have dispel web and fly).

I also have to side with Sochi here: bard is an exclusively group character, so I'd look for more ways he could enhance the group, and so high-level bards would be more powerful after leveling their 40s - which is what this thread is about.

As it turns out, their blasting powers increase. Can bards affect more people, if they level their 40s without changing their instrument?

How many people can *you* affect at the moment? Pretty sure a 1x40bard can affect 11 nat.
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby *juggleblood* » Wed Jul 27, 2016 12:16 pm

Ok, well back to the original point of the thread, I think that chart of damage for gods is pretty much a non-starter, as it's insane damage.

Regarding songs, I do notice that the success rate is hugely dependent on charisma. At low charisma the chance of actually reigning in a fight seems like zero. Same with reprieve, sanc for soul/body, luck gods, etc...

With regard to Bard being the weakest prime class, I'd have to disagree. Sidhe charms are quite amazing and cool, and enhance available mana quite a bit. Cry of the avatar is quite impressive. Dance with the dead, while not reliable, is very nice when it fires. The armor available to Bard lets them run in front row while still maintaining max charisma, meaning they can stop any fight immediately and then reprieve the mob. Bard primes have high natural hit points and decent mana. Song of the mist is very impressive, giving bards the ability to use strike and even pets to solo ether mobs. And Dance of the seven luck gods is enough to make any other prime jealous.

So if by weak, you mean lowest coliseum score, yes. But by any other measure, it's a great prime class and any changes really need to be around the edges such as the ambiguity about success/failure in many of the songs and in the weirdness about some actions/events automatically crashing your song, and in the innacuracy of the who you are singing to messages.

Making high charisma add bonus listeners would be an interesting idea. Altho I think I'd prefer to expand on instruments a bit and have instruments with bigger listener bonuses and limited/zero other bonuses.
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby *juggleblood* » Wed Jul 27, 2016 7:30 pm

Altho...I could see using the damage numbers suggested in his chart above, but make gods damage not multiply in stab or grip function. Then...either make ogham's give damage and hit bonus into stab/grip, or have a new song targetted at stabber/gripper. That would definitely give bards more pride in having high charisma.
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby Teron » Thu Jul 28, 2016 4:15 am

1. The damage chart is great, but so is damage of 9x40 mage avatars or any 9x40 pumped up avatar. Yet all bards get from 9x40 is their powered up cry of the avatars.

I know that some songs, such as sanc for body and reign, are already affected by charisma, but not others. Basically, anything that's not affected by charisma is removed from the "perks" list or is heavily diminished.

Let's try to test these assumptions of mine:
0. Charisma helps cry, sanc for body, reign, oghams, reprieve, luck gods, hymn of an artisan, haunted dirge, eye of the beholder.
1. Bards rarely use blast spells in groups (even if the mob is alone in the room).
2. Bards rarely use songs that require charisma in groups: sanc for body and reign are situational - still helpful, ofc. I have seen dirge used maybe 3 times, 1 myself. I don't see bards playing oghams either.
3. 15-20 charisma is enough to make the bard save against most mobs, you don't need 35 charisma to do it.

So what does it leave us with? Bards rarely use their charisma in groups, yet it's their primary stat. Imagine thieves rarely using stab dam or circle damage in groups.

This brings us to songs that should be also affected by charisma:
- gods of war, 3d most used song (tho if we sum up gods and lions, they come up first)
- song of the mist
- knight's blessing/prayer

- brothers in arms/valor, the 2nd most used song
- lion chorus - 4th most popular
- dreams of the castle
- rina cruinne
- march of the heroes, the most used song ever
- fare thee well, #5th most popular

For the last 5, you don't even have to be a bard to sing those - that's why anyone sings rina or march, and doesn't even ask the only bard in the group to do it.

Cry is the 6th most popular song.

Song statistics:
http://www.slothmud.org/wp/live-info/song-statistics

Essentially, find a way to boost those songs with scaling charisma.

2. Regarding gods of war and stab.

You could create the same sliding scale for stab bonus (as far as I know, it gives about 3-4 damage before multiplier atm). You could grant 1 dam that helps stab every 5 charisma or something, nothing to kill for, but it'll give bards a reason to wear charisma eq instead of -saves for blasting *with wind* in stab groups.

Though, I'll welcome any song that helps the stab as much as gods and arms do, and is cheaper.

3. I didn't say bard was weak, so maybe you are talking to Yang.

Bard does, however, lack a single-target damage move that'd make it more useful in solo, but bard isn't a monk or a thief, so there can't be any physical skill. Maybe a 15 avatar skill that'd allow the bard to focus an area song at a single target?

Such as:
- a skill that forms a parametric array that allows sending the waves precisely. Expert singers can do it and not damage everyone in the room:
http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythb ... ing-glass/

You can name it a resonant frequency or resonant focus.

- a complex bard instrument, an acoustic lense:
Scientific American wrote:Instead of using glass and mirrors, the researchers designed an acoustic lens made of 21 rows of stainless-steel spheres, with each row having 21 spheres.


a 5x40 forge, +1 charisma, -15% mana cost, -3 person affected, single-target.

I wonder, if you could set the number of ppl affected to 1 with an instrument, that'd achieve the goal.

- a held low item a parabolic reflector, basically a deep dish

6x40 & 40ba to use, +5ma, single target.

More info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weapon
"Extremely high-power sound waves can disrupt or destroy the eardrums of a target and cause severe pain or disorientation. "

My concern is that if it's only an instrument, it won't be known to new players, who would like to know, how is it to play a bard from the help files.
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby Oboe » Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:32 am

Regarding the original idea, no, thanks. The songs have worked in their present
manner from the earliest days of the bard class. It's not a bug. Find the
optimal strategy and play that way. It's unsportmanlike to lobby for game
changes that would make your preferred strategy become the optimal one.
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby Hung » Tue Aug 02, 2016 2:34 am

Hi Oboe,
The original concern of Taron(please, T, correct me if I am wrong) is charisma being quite useless for bard. Because songs depending on it are used rarely. I completely agree with that concern. If I could go back, I wont invest drachma in the cloak of forgotten tales and in the book of the old forgotten tales.
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby Teron » Wed Aug 03, 2016 1:05 am

Oboe, what original idea are you talking about?

If it's about -saves, then I've already conceded on that one (and also post in that thread, not here :p). I agree that I need to change my coliseum strategy, though the original stimulus was that it felt weird that -saves vs spells don't affect *channelling* songs. (help saves) It affecting a coliseum strategy would've been a consequence, not the desired result, especially that it wouldn't have been coded that -saves would have only added to the bard -saves.

If it's about the idea that some songs should scale with charisma, which this thread is about and is why I separated them, what strategies should I change? This is about nothing else, but making bard primes more useful in groups and slightly more powerful in solo. What is it here that you don't like?

P.S. This thread is precisely why I'm not buying the book of tales with +3charisma (but also because I can cap w/o it). A quest robe with a socketed Citrine is enough, though I'm considering switching that rune to an Eye Agate (-saves).
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Re: Make bard songs (not just blast) scale with charisma

Postby Oboe » Wed Aug 03, 2016 2:12 am

Teron wrote:Oboe, what original idea are you talking about?


The one given in the original post of this thread, namely:

Teron wrote:If it's about the idea that some songs should scale with charisma, which this thread is about and is why I separated them, what strategies should I change?


You should wear +cha eq if and only if it already brings commensurate benefits for the songs you will use.

Teron wrote:This is about nothing else, but making bard primes more useful in groups and slightly more powerful in solo. What is it here that you don't like?


The part about making bard primes more powerful, anywhere.
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