On Bardin' prerequisites

What question didn't they answer? I thought you were wonder about the skills required to get bard to 70 because they didn't fit bard as prerequisite skills. They answered that though so...

To repeat, again: bard is supposed to be moderately hard to level. Because we don't need 5,000,000 low-level bards in the world, so it should be something you have to work a bit for. That's how you gate things in a game where everybody can be everything: are you willing to spend a few hours to get there? If not, use Sword, it's great and it doesn't require any extra work.

As to "what about bards requires you to grow plants", well, my idea of a bard is somebody who likes nature, so I picked nature-oriented skills. Maybe it's too hard to level right now, maybe it's too easy. It's alpha, and those are prototype prereqs. Again, we'll be revising all skill's prerequisites into their final forms in late beta after more skills are online. I don't know what the final prerequisites will be for bard, of course, because we don't know which skills will make the cut. I usually toss out about half the skills that get prototyped, so we'll just have to see. There are no planned changes any time in the near future, though we can tweak the temporary settings up or down if they've proven to be too tough.

I always just buy my cheesecloth and cotton stuff from someone else. o-o

What's wrong with lowbie bards? Serious question.

Nothing is wrong with lowbie bards. However I do recall talk of advanced skills and races being for the folk that want challenge.

I get the reasons for downsides to jobs. Fire had very high upfront costs. Archery's power is barely contained by making it costly. Lycan eats 3 days per month, Druid has the invasion events. Now, Bard is way more of a grind to level than any of them, while the skill uses both hands to perform, and the actual throughput is rather moderate. Okay damage, okay heal, some CC, but very immobile, extremely vulnerable to knockback. Damage has even been nerfed, which I couldn't understand, since it wasn't high to begin with.

When I leveled Fire Magic, I farmed money to buy what I needed for the 65/70er spells (cost me a kidney). That was okay for me, because I did what I like to do: combat.
Now my goal is Bard, and I have to craft, which is something I don't enjoy. All my prereqs are there now, or approaching. I did it for the same reason I main the underperforming Animal Handling: because I like the skill, even tho it lacks oomph.

I didn't find the way to unlock Bard challenging. I found it boring. It also wasn't "moderately hard to level", it was a nightmare, still is (flower arrangement 5, poetry 8, still a bit more to do).

Yeah, it gets grindy and while I am ok with that I hope it does not get worse and would rather have some of the prerequisites replaced with combat quests instead. Such as epic quests that end with a boss battle for a drop the trainer needs or named monster hunts. I really like the idea of specialized quests for this like bards having to fight and sooth a savage beast with a special instrument they got as part of the quest from a chest in a dungeon or killing an open world NM. On a side note just to help if you didn't know, sundays are poetry reading day so you can get good easy exp for lvling.

Yea there was one at 5PM EST, which is 6AM in my timezone :/

I wonder, if the skill "should be hard to level", why not do it like in old EQ? Some classes get more, some less combat XP. Problem solved. Quest to unlock 60, then 70 would be definitely better than the rather lame "craft this and that" solution.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kazeandi

... Druid has the invasion events.

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Druid now also has the additional requirement of needing another combat skill at 50 first. Which isn't a problem for you but a problem for someone non-combat focused who just wants to try out the skill on an alt for a bit. Other skills like necromancy and ice magic need specific boss kills which can be tough for someone who doesn't just want to be carried through the fight by a higher level player. I don't think there is anything wrong with skills having locks like that; it adds flavor and a sense of accomplishment to the game.

It's really hard to give accurate feedback on the difficulty of skill unlocks during alpha since people that have been playing awhile tend to have maxed skills just because they can already. Any established player is likely to have long maxed their gardening since it's required for so many things and is also likely to have at least some points in flower arrangement, so I'd assume poetry appreciation has been the main skill that people needed for bard and leveling just one pre-req skill is much easier than three...

The general idea is not bad. What's bad is the implementation in the case of the Bard class, but we're not moving forward here, they've already made up their mind.