Bards' songbirds as actual class entities

Shirszae

So I've been wondering as of late, is there any chance of bards getting their songbirds to be actual class entities, much like falcons or angels or baalzadeens, as opposed to what amounts to be a defense? To my knowledge, we are the only class whose entity works in such a way, and its a little depressing. I don't know about other bards, but I'd love to have my songbird actually follow me in a visible way. 

Anyway, discuss/consider/whatever. This is just something I would really like to see.

Averi

YES! THEN I CAN HUG IT!

edit: but can we choose between types of birds too?  I really want a duck. :< (edit: I am not serious when I say this. Although I do think it is an awesome idea. ))

Eld

Averi said:

YES! THEN I CAN HUG IT!

edit: but can we choose between types of birds too?  I really want a duck. :< (edit: I am not serious when I say this. Although I do think it is an awesome idea. ))

Yes! Then I can kill it! I actually don't have a good feel for how helpful that would be in fighting bards, but seems like an interesting option to add, as well as an extra bit of flavour.

Averi

It might make us a bit more powerful because as of now, our songbird poofs after a while and it takes equilibrium ((I think)) to resummon it.  But it is also sort of random like a loki that works part of the time. Maybe it'd have to be balance out a bit, but then maybe not.  I don't really know. 

Melodie

An actual songbird would be kind of cool. Would it retain its current function, or something new entirely, or?

Shirszae

Melodie said:

An actual songbird would be kind of cool. Would it retain its current function, or something new entirely, or?

It could retain its current function, I suppose. Would be nice if they varied in the way falcons do depending on House, or at the very least depending on whether the bard belonged to the Ty Beirdd, the CIJ, anywhere else, or rogue. 

Melodie

Depending where you bards wanted to take this, you could totally have something (kind of) similar to falcons but with differing functions. The different things for different factions ideas is always swell, too. More customisation and flavour is always great!

Gamoneterik

Yes please this would be awesome!

Daklore

Averi said:

YES! THEN I CAN HUG IT!

edit: but can we choose between types of birds too?  I really want a duck. :< (edit: I am not serious when I say this. Although I do think it is an awesome idea. ))

The space duck. So majestic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLLDXXfKkpA

I'm afraid I'm not being constructive with this one... DBZA for the win!

I don't think we need huggable bard birds, though. Isn't that why they made angels non-corporeal-entities?

Nemutaur

Songbird running out as a def seems weird, but if you had it as an entity then high damage bashing classes could kill it rather quickly when they have a little time and then turtle up (assuming they would get the same triple loki final stand shot if they die like serpent snake pets now).

Its just something you have to be able to deal with right now for combat. For RP sure, it would be cooler if it were an entity.

Shirszae

Daklore said:

Averi said:

YES! THEN I CAN HUG IT!

edit: but can we choose between types of birds too?  I really want a duck. :< (edit: I am not serious when I say this. Although I do think it is an awesome idea. ))

The space duck. So majestic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLLDXXfKkpA

I'm afraid I'm not being constructive with this one... DBZA for the win!

I don't think we need huggable bard birds, though. Isn't that why they made angels non-corporeal-entities?

There's a rather big difference between birds and angels, I think. I fail to see why songbirds can't be corporeal when pretty much every other class entity is, aside from angels.

Kafziel

If this thread ends up with songbirds being killable I am using my forum PK cause and coming after you IG.

Tesha

My guess regarding angels is people were molesting them. I don't have the same fear for songbirds, but you guys really don't want songbirds being killable. They would have like 4 health. And don't even bother asking for the ability to order them to sing specific songs.

(edit to replace certain with specific)

Shirszae

Tesha said:

 And don't even bother asking for the ability to order them to sing specific songs.

(edit to replace certain with specific)

I am not asking for that. Not that it wouldn't be nice, mind you.  As for them being killed easily, thats the admin's decision. It'll probably suck, and people will hate me, but I couldn't care less.

Averi

@Daklore I you.   :x  :x :x

Edit: I think it'd be sort of lame if songbirds were a remake of falcons though. :< and it'd suck if they were killable.  I don't really know what else they'd do otherwise (or how this idea would actually work) but I still want to hug them. 

Shirszae

They don't need to be a remake of falcons. Mostly, it would be interesting if there were different kinds for the different houses. It would not be too difficult, since there really are only two 'artsy' houses, plus rogues, which in this case would be everyone else.

Of course, some other nifty utility would be nice, but I don't know what else would be appropriate. 

I'd probably settle for the above, for now at least.

Atalkez

@Tecton

Thoughts on this being viable?

Sarapis

I can answer for him. We have much bigger fish to fry.

(Not that it's not a fun idea, incidentally. I'd like a songbird were I a bard. Mine would have laser eyes, and would sing only the screechiest of Mhaldorian death metal.)

Shirszae

Whatever. You could at least have saved the horrible joke thats not even funny. Bigger fish? Sure. But would it really be that hard? Or time consuming? It could at least be a pet project in between working on all that other stuff that requires heavy coding.

Sarapis

That's not really the point. There are thousands of small changes we could make that don't take much time to implement individually, but since there are far more things we could do than we have the resources to do, it's about benefit vs. time spent. Everything takes times, and there is a fixed amount of it. If that gets done, something else that's more important does not get done....and there are a lot of things more important to the game than whether you can hug your songbird or not.

Shirszae

Sarapis said:

That's not really the point. There are thousands of small changes we could make that don't take much time to implement individually, but since there are far more things we could do than we have the resources to do, it's about benefit vs. time spent. Everything takes times, and there is a fixed amount of it. If that gets done, something else that's more important does not get done....and there are a lot of things more important to the game than whether you can hug your songbird or not.

This is not even the first small change thats get requested. I've seen more silly things get approved. So yes, it might take time, but it would bring bard in line with basically every other class in existence! That should be worth something at least. 

Meh... I hope you at least consider it sometime down the road...

Jovolo

The thing is, this also has notable combat implications. It requires more effort in discussion and implementation than the admin can afford to invest right now while simultaneously remaining quite low on their list of priorities. That's sort of the nip in the bud unfortunately, I guess!

This is something more suitable for classleads, imo.

Sarapis

Shirszae said:

Sarapis said:

That's not really the point. There are thousands of small changes we could make that don't take much time to implement individually, but since there are far more things we could do than we have the resources to do, it's about benefit vs. time spent. Everything takes times, and there is a fixed amount of it. If that gets done, something else that's more important does not get done....and there are a lot of things more important to the game than whether you can hug your songbird or not.

This is not even the first small change thats get requested. I've seen more silly things get approved. So yes, it might take time, but it would bring bard in line with basically every other class in existence! That should be worth something at least. 

Meh... I hope you at least consider it sometime down the road...

There are currently over 1800 player-submitted ideas sitting in the ideas file, and everybody who submitted one believes that idea is worthy of inclusion and prioritizing. The reality is that most of them, even the good ideas, will never see inclusion, because like every developer in existence, there's far more we'd like to do than we'll ever be able to do. Might happen down the road, might never happen. It's a fine idea, it's just not likely to rise to the top of the gigantic pile anytime soon.

Florentino

Get a songbird pet like Jurixe's shrike or many other pets in existence and roleplay with that.

Jonathin

You say, "Sing, swallow."

A mahogany swallow twitters out a simple yet rousing song, stomping one wooden foot upon the ground for a back-beat.

Mine doesn't work.

Shirszae

Florentino said:

Get a songbird pet like Jurixe's shrike or many other pets in existence and roleplay with that.

If you won't bother to read, then simply don't post. That doesn't address any of the points made at all. 

Sylvance

My ten cents - I'd throw credits at this like it was up on the tables with its titties out. I wouldn't even care if it got killed in combat (though, granted, that's because I don't PvP). Even if just for the customisability, this idea is where it's at.

Averi

I would care if it was easily killable. :< I don't think this is really that small of a change because materializing the bird would mean adjusting its health as well as the frequency of it afflicting something to make it useful but not overpowering.  It'd take some balancing work and would not be as simple as "oh yay. you can hug it now" without any other changes.  

Edit: OMG wrong face emote. 

Atalkez

Shirszae said:

Whatever. You could at least have saved the horrible joke thats not even funny. Bigger fish? Sure. But would it really be that hard? Or time consuming? It could at least be a pet project in between working on all that other stuff that requires heavy coding.

The original answer had no joke. @Sarapis added it (I'm sure) to not seem like a dick.

I personally appreciate an honest straightforward answer. I've already scrapped this idea and moved on. I think the reasons behind this not working right now are more than fair.

Shirszae

Atalkez said:

Shirszae said:

Whatever. You could at least have saved the horrible joke thats not even funny. Bigger fish? Sure. But would it really be that hard? Or time consuming? It could at least be a pet project in between working on all that other stuff that requires heavy coding.

The original answer had no joke. @Sarapis added it (I'm sure) to not seem like a dick.

I personally appreciate an honest straightforward answer. I've already scrapped this idea and moved on. I think the reasons behind this not working right now are more than fair.

I admit I might have overreacted with the joke thing, but to me, it was that addition that made the post seem dickish. My bad, perhaps, but different people see things in different ways.

Florentino

@Shirszae I did read. I assumed you wanted it to roleplay with it. Your only argument presented in the thread was "this ability works in a way inconsistent with the way other abilities work" which is a terrible argument. Not everything has to be the same.