Bard's Melody

Right around when I returned, I saw a patch message describing some
changes to the Melody command. I was intrigued, but didn't do anything
further other than joke around a little with a guild bard about how easy
she had it, when I was a bard I had to 1 2 3 4 5 uphill, in the snow,
both ways, that sort of thing.

Something happened on the Combine server a couple days ago, though, the
top guild on the server completed the big kill that opens the next
expansion, DON. I never bought that one, nor the expansions after
except for some reason I don't recall, POR. On Combine, where we
started out with just the original three continents, and have been
slowly unlocking one expansion after another, I didn't need the new ones
anyway.

I could download DON for 9.99, but looking ahead, I'm missing 4 more at
9.99 each. Instead, I went out and bought the Anniversary Edition,
which is all expansions up to and including Buried Sea.

Well, curiousity got the better of me, so this morning I went to a
random "normal" server, and rolled up a Drakkin. For class, I
remembered the Melody changes, and went with a bard. Spent an hour in
the tutorial getting up to level 5, and then left, planning to tour
Crescent Reach a little... but also to finally try out the final
question I had about Melody. I'd already answered most of my question,
but needed an outdoor zone for the final bit.

Basics: Melody is a socials command, you need to open your action
window and click the socials page tab, then go to page 2, click on a
blank button, write a name for the button in the social name window, and
then enter your command text in one of the slots underneath. In this
case the syntax is simple, /melody followed by some numbers from 1 to 8
(well 9 but not till much later). Each number corresponds to one of
your spell gems, from the top down.

Melody then starts one song, and when it completes casting, stops that
one and starts the next, until it reaches the end of your command, then
it goes back and repeats.

In the past, Melody would stop completely if you missed a note or
otherwise became interrupted.

The big change is a simple one, now, if you miss a note, the command
repeats its attempt to play the song you missed.

I also found, in the past, that I couldn't get Melody to reliably run
more than three songs simultaneously. Song one would fade before it was
repeated.

Now, I was able to run not just 3 songs, but 4.

The reason I needed to get level 5, and outdoors, is that I wanted to
check on a 5 song twist; something I can accomplish when I'm really on
top of my game as a bard (played one for 57 levels a couple years back)

Melody will accept 5 song lists, but its not managing to keep them all
active simultaneously. Now if I recall correctly, some of that had to
do with WHICH songs were selected, in what order, I couldn't necessarily
keep any 5 random songs going, in fact even at best I could only mostly
keep 5 running, one or another would drop every now and then. So
possibly there's some fine tuning that would let some 5 song melodies
linger on as well as they would for a "real" twisting bard.

The bigger concern, for me, is that in some cases some songs are more
important than others. The current system keeps plugging away at a song
that misses, instead of skipping it and moving on to the next. Really
twisting, if I'm kiting for example, I could make sure Selos is always
running, and just keep as many DOTs going as I can manage. With Melody
now, if I'm trying to run 3 chants and selos, and I skip the beat on a
chant, I'll retry it, meaning Selos will drop before I get back to
singing it.

More amusing, trying my 5 song melody out indoors, it went 1 2 3 4 5 5 5
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 because selos can't be cast indoors, so it kept retrying!

I'm interested in this because the reason I stopped playing my bard was
that I developed wrist and elbow pain; part of that is from my real
world job as a swordsmith, but the constant repetitive clicking was a
serious contributing factor. When they introduced Melody, I thought
about going back to bard, but on reflection it looked like most of the
time I wouldn't use it, it would be too crippling what with the stops,
and the 3 song twist limit.

With a 4 song limit, and no more stopping, I think perhaps 90% of the
time I could just leave a melody running and be 90% as effective as a
real twisting bard. In fact, it looks like there would be -less-
clicking than on many of my other toons!

Just out of interest, I just made an 8 song melody, and its running
those songs in order. Of course they don't all stay up, at all, but if
there's some reason I'd want to stretch out the twist to sometimes
include a heal or some such, apparantly thats an option too. Or with
the longer lasting selos, I guess I could go 1 2 3 4 5 2 3 4 5 2 3 4 5
repeat, and keep selos up without singing it constantly. Counted it
out, I can do 7 repetitions of 2 3 4 5 after that first 1. Still
singing Selos more often than once a minute, but not bad.

Also, (and I think this was always in place) clicking on a melody social
works as a stopsong, to switch to a new social (or restart the one
you're singing) you double click the social.

I just drank a potion and didn't interrupt the melody I was singing. It
was celestial regen 1, which seems to be insta cast, probably that makes
a difference... but maybe not.

I wonder if its also possible to click on items like Singing Steel Helm
while mid melody without stopping it beforehand... perhaps it treats
these things like a missed note now. More experimentation is in order.

I'm not too excited at the moment with my Drakkin. Admittedly, its
interesting to see a new race, but so far this one looks like a human
with tattoes and a little body art. Have other stuff to do today, so I
won't get around to doing that exploring till later I guess.

Lance
Tiune, 5 bard, some server or other. (xenogy? I forget! Ah, I just
ignored a random person, because it gives me a
SOE.EQ.Povar.nameofperson, which tells me the server is Povar.)

Lance Berg <emporer.DeleteThis@NOSPAM.dejazzd.com> wrote in
news:LqmdnZCAgYa0mhjbnZ2dnUVZ_r-onZ2d@dejazzd.com:

>
> Basics: Melody is a socials command, you need to open your action
> window and click the socials page tab, then go to page 2, click on a
> blank button, write a name for the button in the social name window,
> and then enter your command text in one of the slots underneath. In
> this case the syntax is simple, /melody followed by some numbers from
> 1 to 8 (well 9 but not till much later). Each number corresponds to
> one of your spell gems, from the top down.
>
> Melody then starts one song, and when it completes casting, stops that
> one and starts the next, until it reaches the end of your command,
> then it goes back and repeats.
>
> In the past, Melody would stop completely if you missed a note or
> otherwise became interrupted.
>
> The big change is a simple one, now, if you miss a note, the command
> repeats its attempt to play the song you missed.
>
> I also found, in the past, that I couldn't get Melody to reliably run
> more than three songs simultaneously. Song one would fade before it
> was repeated.
>
> Now, I was able to run not just 3 songs, but 4.

As a retired 60 bard on Firiona Vie, I recently tried rolling up a new
bard on Stromm and checking out the /melody feature. When singing 4
songs, I am able to keep them all up for the most part, but one does
occasionally drop. The auto-restart is a godsend, though.

> The reason I needed to get level 5, and outdoors, is that I wanted to
> check on a 5 song twist; something I can accomplish when I'm really on
> top of my game as a bard (played one for 57 levels a couple years
> back)

Short of twisting in a long-term buff, I could never get more than 4 to
stay up at a time. I'm attributing this to network latency rather than
any sort of deficiency in my own skills, of course.

> The bigger concern, for me, is that in some cases some songs are more
> important than others. The current system keeps plugging away at a
> song that misses, instead of skipping it and moving on to the next.
> Really twisting, if I'm kiting for example, I could make sure Selos is
> always running, and just keep as many DOTs going as I can manage.
> With Melody now, if I'm trying to run 3 chants and selos, and I skip
> the beat on a chant, I'll retry it, meaning Selos will drop before I
> get back to singing it.
>
> More amusing, trying my 5 song melody out indoors, it went 1 2 3 4 5 5
> 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 because selos can't be cast indoors, so it kept
> retrying!

Hmm. Hadn't considered that. One would think it simple enough for them
to tweak it so that only "You have missed a note..." type occurances
trigger a re-try. Then again, this *is* the bard class, after all, where
no class modifications - no matter how minor - can be veiwed as safe.

> Just out of interest, I just made an 8 song melody, and its running
> those songs in order. Of course they don't all stay up, at all, but
> if there's some reason I'd want to stretch out the twist to sometimes
> include a heal or some such, apparantly thats an option too. Or with
> the longer lasting selos, I guess I could go 1 2 3 4 5 2 3 4 5 2 3 4 5
> repeat, and keep selos up without singing it constantly. Counted it
> out, I can do 7 repetitions of 2 3 4 5 after that first 1. Still
> singing Selos more often than once a minute, but not bad.

That's very interesting. I hadn't considered that approach. I guess I
can finally forego SoW potions and rely, instead, on good ol' Song of
Travel.

> Also, (and I think this was always in place) clicking on a melody
> social works as a stopsong, to switch to a new social (or restart the
> one you're singing) you double click the social.

An old familiar mechanism with which I doubt too many bard vets would
find fault. After all this time, double-tapping to initiate another song
or twist just seems the natural action.

> I just drank a potion and didn't interrupt the melody I was singing.
> It was celestial regen 1, which seems to be insta cast, probably that
> makes a difference... but maybe not.
>
> I wonder if its also possible to click on items like Singing Steel
> Helm while mid melody without stopping it beforehand... perhaps it
> treats these things like a missed note now. More experimentation is
> in order.

Here is where my experience has been different. While /melody was
running - and in the middle of a fight - I drank a potion and noticed
that, while all spell gems were grayed out, no more songs were being
sung, and they eventually dropped from my song buffs window, though I
could not "stop" the melody or start anything else manually. I was just
stuck in a singing-but-not-really-singing state. I had to zone to
correct it. I have not tried any clickies. They could be more reliable
in that respect, as they aren't necessarily tied to normal spell/song
recast timers and such.

> I'm not too excited at the moment with my Drakkin. Admittedly, its
> interesting to see a new race, but so far this one looks like a human
> with tattoes and a little body art. Have other stuff to do today, so
> I won't get around to doing that exploring till later I guess.

I've never been a fan of the Drakkin. They just don't look like they
belong in EQ. Plus, among other things, the face spikes look glued on or
superimposed, with no protrusion marks or shading of any sort on the
skin around them, and the animations are just plain amateurish and
silly. The way they short-step when turning in place always reminds me
of the way the magician earth pet runs - waaay too many steps involved.
Lastly, are they supposed to look so emaciated and emo?

--
Richard Carpenter
"Write something worth reading, or do something worth writing."
-- Benjamin Franklin