Bard Fizzle

[Shin Noir]

Well, frankly #melody trivializes a lot of situations, i've noticed while twisting via that command you never "fizzle" a song (aka miss a note).

What's the possibility of making fizzles not occur on songs even without #melody? My debate for this change is this: EQEMU has had a bug with bards for a while now where songs will "stick", aka they will have issues playing and no matter how many times you recast it'll just fail, usually changing targets fixes it. This issue will still exist if you remove the fizzling of songs.

Granted, there is an AA line that covers making fizzling less often. And if it is possible to make that AA line merely remove the chance of fizzling up to 70 (since we get that bard stuck bug), that'd be nifty. I'm guessing as is the AA line is up to some level below 70, but I will check when I hop on again (If I don't get DB-String errors).

You can always revert the change back once EQEMU fixes the stuck bug.

[drawnir]

This response is mildly speculative as I'm adding what I have read on the EQMU boards to my experience as a bard that went through the whole fizzle ordeal that occurred around the time of titanium.

A couple/few years ago, bards and all casters were able to purchase certain aa's that allowed them to be fizzle proof. Eventually that certain aa combo was removed and the fizzle rates shot through the roof. This was eventually fixed...although there was/is still a fizzle rate, and because bards cast the most, we are affected the most. I remember having this discussion with the dev's talking with the bard community, and a suitable resolution was reached, though it was a good deal after the titanium release, so I believe that the fix is not in place on EQMU.

I also know that bards are the hardest class to maintain code on. This was so painfully true on live in my 10 years of playing a bard that often bardic issues drug on forever because it was so hard to find the fix/resolution. I can only imagine that rings true on EQMU, though I will say that they try.

The fizzle rate, hang, locks, and song delays are, as far as what I have read on the EQMU board, a result of a client/server conflict that is unable to be fixed on EQMU. It may be fixed when the SoF client comes into play, but that is more hearsay than anything. Hence /melody was replaced with #melody. I moved to this server due to it having #melody...my last server refused to allow it. On live I could, with clickies, consistently weave 6 songs for upwards of an hour straight, 4 songs when I was pulling for my guild. On 90% of the EQMU servers I strain to weave 4 due to the lag on songs. Believe me, the songs getting stuck are no where near what they were on older versions of EQMU...be glad of that! haha.

Granted, since I am relatively new and have had little time as of late to play, my bard is level 55 i think, so I haven't had time to test the fizzle rate with the aa's. I will say that on my last server, that ran much older software and where I was 75 with max aa's, aa's that "fixed" fizzles did almost nothing. The aa's that reduce fizzles on lower level songs DO work, however as you mentioned, they are for lower levels and in regards to the typical song lineup for groups, these aa's are of little benefit.

I would say these issues could be addressed on the EQMU board for the best results, though from what I know about the difficulty of coding bards and my previous requests to get these, the run speed and FM aa's to be fixed, I wouldn't hold my breath. They do what they can with what they know.

I have had little to no problems in regards to melody. What problems are you having? Yes it may trivialize situations, however so did melody on live. Sure it never fizzled, then fizzled like crazy and now is coded to skip to the next song on a fizzle, but it is intended to let us finally socialize during long monotonous periods or concentrate on pulling and other things like fight cues; for many other situations it is still far better to weave manually, and that has always been the case, even when like on here notes could not be missed. Even when any Sodanso could box and /melody a bard, bards who could weave and pull were still greatly in demand. Use melody when you have to, and weave manually when you need...just be ready to mash a song button when it sticks, that's what I do. It only trivializes if you let it. Hope the info helps.

[striat]

I'd rather give bards an overhaul than to band-aid them. I have been meaning to do this, I just haven't had time. Fizzles indeed can be rough. And songs getting "stuck" is certainly ideal. However, I do not think eliminating fizzles for bards altogether is a great idea.

While melody does indeed have benefits, it should have never been implemented for the mainstream code. It was a mistake to not reject it, but in fairness, a significant amount of "bad" code got checked in since the svn move.

I'll look into bards this weekend.

[drawnir]

Could I make a request if you are looking at bards? To be honest, my bard is 50ish, and I do not have fading memories (FM) yet, but I am assuming the FM aa is the same on all servers.

On my old server, FM was basically given a band-aid and did the same thing as a monk FD. It also did not consume mana and, my greatest complaint with this fix, it hardly worked. On live it had a 1 second recast, consumed 900 mana, provided instant regular invis (like the ranger camo aa) and dropped aggro. I am assuming on THF, FM is the same wanna-be monk FD. If so...could you take a look and try to change this so it is like the live version? It may not be possible, but you would have my undying thanks if that could be fixed...if it is the same FM here.

Here is the lucy info on FM: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?i ... ource=Live

Also, again with the assuming that the Boastfull Bellow has the same inconsistencies on my old server than with live, it does not quite work either. The ability is skiddish, often not working. On my old server, when it is used, the bard has to stop singing and the range see,s to be greatly reduced. On live it can be casted while other songs are being weaved and the range is 250. I don't really know if it stuns, but I never worried about that.

Here is the lucy info on Boastfull Bellow: http://lucy.allakhazam.com/spell.html?i ... ource=Live

the Fleet of foot line of AA's on my old server broke selos to be actually slower than Spirit of Wolf. I don't know if that's the issue here, but if it is, that's broken. Easy fix for that though, I just don't use it. But it's worth looking at to avoid if it is broken.

I am sorry for not being able to provide feedback for this server, I wish I had more time to play and level. Had to take a month off and will be returning this week..finally! I did test these problems on my other server (not naming since my intent isn't to talk bad about other servers, but I can provide the name is need be...I do know they are running on an older version of EQMU though). If any bards have these aa's and can prove or disprove my findings I would appreciate it! Just trying to help as FM and BB are great pulling tools =) And please let me know if there is anything i can do or provide to help. I'm not familiar with coding at all, but I am willing to search for stuff to help!

[striat]

Could I make a request if you are looking at bards? To be honest, my bard is 50ish, and I do not have fading memories (FM) yet, but I am assuming the FM aa is the same on all servers.

Can someone test these abilities and report if they still do not function correctly? The AA, the fading memories, and the bellow.

On live it had a 1 second recast, consumed 900 mana, provided instant regular invis (like the ranger camo aa) and dropped aggro. I am assuming on THF, FM is the same wanna-be monk FD. If so...could you take a look and try to change this so it is like the live version?

Does it simply make you invisible or does it literally add an invisibility buff to your character? By adding a buff, I mean can you look in your effects window and see 'invisibility' or something similar?

Also, again with the assuming that the Boastfull Bellow has the same inconsistencies on my old server than with live, it does not quite work either. The ability is skiddish, often not working. On my old server, when it is used, the bard has to stop singing and the range see,s to be greatly reduced. On live it can be casted while other songs are being weaved and the range is 250. I don't really know if it stuns, but I never worried about that.

The 0 cast/0 recast in the spell file strikes me as odd. So, I'll need to do a little research, but will look into this.

the Fleet of foot line of AA's on my old server broke selos to be actually slower than Spirit of Wolf. I don't know if that's the issue here, but if it is, that's broken. Easy fix for that though, I just don't use it. But it's worth looking at to avoid if it is broken.

Don't anticipate this being rough. Any idea of the actual AA name?

If any bards have these aa's and can prove or disprove my findings I would appreciate it! Just trying to help as FM and BB are great pulling tools =) And please let me know if there is anything i can do or provide to help. I'm not familiar with coding at all, but I am willing to search for stuff to help!

Indeed! Any feedback makes my job a little easier;p Thanks for your feedback. I would definitely rather get things fixed the correct way.

[Jeido]

Fading Memories works perfectly here, at least as a spell. I can't say anything about the AA itself, but I am assuming it will also work. The ToV monk BP has fading memories clicky, and I was also worried that it would just give me another FD which isnt too useful. I was wrong though, and it works just like it did on live. As far as the invis buff, striat, no it doesn't actually give a buff it just auto invised your character and you'd know it by the parenthesis around your name.

Boastful Bellow: it wasn't an insta reuse spell. If I remember correctly, it was either a 30 second recast or 1 minute. I want to say 30 seconds, though. Please be careful with this though, there were so many times that i'd push my limits on live and end up being oor to cast it. On live that was no issue, but on emu then it tends to trigger the reuse timer of AA's regardless of if they actually fired or not.

Fleet of the Foot is the AA name (I believe... : P)

[drawnir]

I'm sorry, I'm operating on about 4 hours of sleep over the past two days and would at this point probably make more sense conversing in Latin than English, haha. Sorry I fudged some things up.

Jeido, thank you so much for confirming FM works. I can't wait to get the AA once again and have a working version! One of the things I enjoy most is pulling, so this was a biggy for me! To answer your question Strait, the AA gives instant invis, with no buff icon and would last indefinitely until either a song/spell/ability was used or a see-invis mob came over and said hi.

The AA line is indeed called Fleet of Foot. It intended to allow runspeeds of up to 158%. Although when PoP first came out on live, this AA was broken and actually resulted in a decreased runspeed. This was eventually fixed and now works fine, but It did take some time (3 - 8 months I believe) to fix. Again, on the other server with the older software that I played on still had the Broken Fleet of Foot which is the only place I know to test from, and I apologize for the inconsistency as I know THF runs on a newer version. An easy way to test this AA would be to have a bard with Max AA: If the Maxed bard can happily zoom along with the points in the Fleet of Foot line, all is well. If the Maxed AA bard has a selos that moves at a greatly slowed pace, and said bard automatically runs into the closest heard of mobs to end his or her suffering, the AA is broken. =)

As for Boastful Bellow, it is an instant cast, but there was a reuse timer on it, 18 second recast. Lucy gives several different versions of BB as it has been improved by other expansions. I have no idea why they all say there is an instant recast; that was never the case. I went on the concert hall (Subsequently, if you need information on bard spells, techniques and abilities, this would be a great site to gather any needed information from: http://forums.theconcerthall.net/index.php ). Here is the information I dug up on the original BB from the PoP expansion:

50DD, 0-sec Stun (level 60 max*) *Newer AA lines raised the level cap (up to 85 now I believe), damage done (never really mattered; it's a pulling tool more than anything), chance of stun, recast (down to I believe 5 or 10 seconds), and added debuffing agents to the ability.

Allows the bard to bellow with a force that causes physical harm to your enemies as well as potentially interfering with spell casting. Prerequisite: Combat Fury. This is an activated skill with an 18 sec. recast time. Instant cast, 50DD base dmg, 250 ft range, requires line of sight. Ability is enhanced by singing mods.

Again this would need confirmation, but the ability should be able to be activated on the targeted mob while other songs are being weaved. This mechanic can be best described as the following: Target mob A and cast lull/mez - while song is casting the bard should be able to switch targets to mob B and tag aggro on mob B with BB, thus pulling only the intended mob B. Then Hitting FM (if mez was used, no need with lull) and retagging mob B with snare or bard tash to regain aggro safely away from other mobs allowing for a happy single pull. If this can be achieved, the ability is working as intended (as it did on live).

Thank you so much for looking at the bards! I will be able to resume playing on Friday, and hopefully I can max my level and snag some AA's asap. I know this won't really help you this weekend, but I will happily provide any feedback or information that I can. I was at one time pretty active in the bard community and played only a bard, mostly in raid guilds from '99 to 2008, so I feel confident in saying I know the class well. Once I'm able to acquire abilities and such I will provide any feedback I can. Until then, if you have any questions pertaining to bard issues, I will do what I can to find the information for you. I'll be honest though and say I was never any good at the calculations, and you probably would have a hard time finding someone with less knowledge of code, but I can probably find it if it's been discussed in the past (I have all 3 bard forums archived...somewhere on my computer).

[Jeido]

One more thing about Boastful Bellow that I think should be mentioned. On live, as Drawnir has stated, it was castable while already weaving another song (song bar would be down, but you could cast the AA boastful successfully). There was a side effect though. If you were casting, say, Harmony of Sound (a debuff) on an orc centurion, and then you switched targets to an orc pawn and hit boastful bellow, harmony of sound would hit the pawn next round instead of the centurion. Usually, bard songs will stay on the original target regardless of if you switched to another as long as you continually sang the song without interuption. Idk if this will help with fixing the issue or not, but more information never hurts!

[Shin Noir]

Wow, this is a lot of talk about random stuff not related to bard fizzle.
Anyways.. uhh
Fading Memories as is I haven't had a lot of chance to test. I do have the AA, but since virtually EVERY CUSTOM ZONE on your server is so easy to pull thus far with a simple lull (This is up to ssra/kael/chardok), and all in dungeons so I can't even use bardspeed to my advantage, I haven't really had a chance to properly test it. (There's exceptions but essentially I'm always indoors).

Of the little bit I've tried fading memories it seems awfully powerful. It just wipes memory, no mana cost, and fast recast time. Since I can use it while running as long as I have open space I can just spam the button and keep memblurring mobs. I guess I could test the whole invis part, too, but I haven't really bothered yet since I haven't had an opportunity to really need to use it. The invis part was just a little side bonus, I don't think it's as important as drawnir notes since majority of the things you would use fading memories on are so freaking tough they are going to see invis and aggro a mile away anyways (That's only time I can see lull not working too well). XD

My issue isn't so much fizzling though, it's the client/server sync issue. It makes twisting songs manually almost a joke, maintaining 4 songs can at times be annoying just due to the "stuck" bug coming into play. This is especially true if you're utilizing a targetted detrimental effect, like requiem of time. If the novel drawnir wrote about the last 100 years of EQEMU is true, then it seems there's no easy fix. I suggested removing fizzles until it does get fix, as the bug of songs getting stuck is worse than fizzles. Simple patchjob to help appease the already annoying bug that will stay around. If the fix ever comes to place, then take it out. I don't really care about EQEMU's solution on it, since well this server has been customized since the beginning to be totally out of whack in a lot of regards, and seems to be branching out into it's own mentality of class definitions. Monk with fading memories clickie? lol.....

Also note that #melody isn't doing fizzle checks, and seems to stay up no matter what a mob does to you. I wouldn't mind removing #melody if we did figure out why songs are getting stuck. It seems a little too good, it is bypassing a lot of things and trivializing the class to become very ideal to box. The only complaint with #melody is if you cast targetted detrimental songs, it will cast it on you when your target goes away. If you did want to keep it around, and did a fix on that part, it'd be the point I don't think I'd really turn it off. Haha.

Oh, and #melody also has a tendancy to bug songs when you turn it off. You usually have to cast a song a couple times for them to finally work again. This is kind of like that other bard bug sync issue, but since it's predictable and always happens, it's not so bad.

I'm with you though, I would rather have melody removed. I like playing a bard when I have to do everything myself, and have it a challenge. Nothing saddens me more when people play bard as if it's just another buff bot box. I just wish it didn't bug out on me when you do actually play the class.

@Fleet of Foot: It's on PoP Ability section, it's supposed to make your selo's move you even faster. I don't have the AA's to spare to spend on it yet, to see if it works or not.

[Jeido]

Wow, this is a lot of talk about random stuff not related to bard fizzle.
Anyways.. uhh
Fading Memories as is I haven't had a lot of chance to test. I do have the AA, but since virtually EVERY CUSTOM ZONE on your server is so easy to pull thus far with a simple lull (This is up to ssra/kael/chardok), and all in dungeons so I can't even use bardspeed to my advantage, I haven't really had a chance to properly test it. (There's exceptions but essentially I'm always indoors).

Everything being indoors on this server really does make a bards life tougher. Pulling ST is going to be a nightmare for you without selos. Mobs aggro through walls, etc, and will most likely 1 round you. ToV named have drakes that are very tough to split, so we usually just tank both.

Of the little bit I've tried fading memories it seems awfully powerful. It just wipes memory, no mana cost, and fast recast time. Since I can use it while running as long as I have open space I can just spam the button and keep memblurring mobs. I guess I could test the whole invis part, too, but I haven't really bothered yet since I haven't had an opportunity to really need to use it. The invis part was just a little side bonus, I don't think it's as important as drawnir notes since majority of the things you would use fading memories on are so freaking tough they are going to see invis and aggro a mile away anyways (That's only time I can see lull not working too well). XD

Right, it's not working as intended. On live it would eat 900 mana, and since bard meditate (on live) capped at 30, that was a LOT of mana. It takes hours for a bard even with max FT to get FM again, but here the FT cap is way higher so that will likely not even be the case. I do think that it should have SOME mana cost to it though, to prevent unlimited fading. On live once you got raid geared you could do what Shin said, and just run around spamming it, but it was only for a limited time as you'd run oom rather quickly.

Monk with fading memories clickie? lol.....

Right, it's on the ToV robe (tier 2 raid). It's on a 10 minute recast, so don't worry it's nothing OP. TBH it's only useful for an absolute emergency. (if FD fails)