Music - Fugue

Maligorn

Syntax: PLAY FUGUE <target> ADAGIO
        PLAY FUGUE <target> ALLEGRO
Power:  1 (any)
You can create harmonic fugues by weaving in your own music with that of another bard who is
performing a song (i.e., songs composed through song specializations). Adagio will set the song back
one stanza while Allegro will skip to the next stanza. If the song goes back too far or forward too
far, the song will end prematurely.


Right now, I'm just starting this discussion for the heck of it. Fugue was implemented after my first character and before I reactivated Maligorn to start playing again, so I don't know under what circumstances it was conceived. I believe it's meant to add another facet to bard combat, but...

I think this is a seriously unfun mechanic. I have 3 slots for high stanzas, I'd -really- like to be able to use them without someone taking ----1 p----- to instantly end my song if I'm undeaf and uncaptivated, for a very fast balance.

Do you agree, disagree? I'm just gathering a consensus on this.

Shaddus

I agree completely oocly. I don't think it should be removed, but I agree. I'd suggest the power be upped to maybe 2-3, or the balance be increased.

Enyalida

Every passives class has some way to disable their abilities, and the larger the 'range' of the skills, generally the more potent the counters. I suspect it was added so that, much like mages, one team's player can disable their counterpart. The power cost is comparable to breaking a room of a demesne, though there is less of a way to defend against it.

That said, I agree it's unfun. Perhaps an alternative would be a skill that temporarily causes the target's song effects to turn off, without ending the song. On top of a power cost raise, perhaps.

Maligorn

I want this ability burned to the ground, scorched earth, il'Garala style destruction.

But failing that, I'd love if Fugue gave you a chance to Reprise to negate its effect, a 5 second window. The enemy bard Fugueing wouldn't have to channel it, so the onus would be on the afflicted bard to reprise in time. Or play their song forward if Adagio'd.

Enyalida

That'd make sense too, that's ultimately why reprise was put in - to counter fugue. It's just really poor at it currently.


Trust and believe, there are several skills I'd be okay with just trashing, even if it meant rebalancing skillsets to account for it. 

Maligorn

Reprise was in the skillset long before Fugue I thought?

Lavinya

Deafness is already an irritating and highly effective hindrance to songs, and having a song drop completely is a serious disable. I make use of fugue against bards because it is so effective, but I wouldn't cry if the ability disappeared.

Maligorn

I have said before that I won't use Fugue on principle, but even I'll bend my own rules when it comes to Ascension.

I just think that bards messing with your song so easily is pretty extremely lame.

Yarith

I dunno. I like fugue. 

You can always sit on the 7th/8th stanza and reprise down as you need to. 


Being unable to end a song and being outnumbered by bards doesn't sound that much fun. 
People don't even use it enough for it to be that much of a problem. Just learn who does and sit a bit lower. 

Enyalida

No, I can't remember when fugue was put in, but reprise was recent, I think.

The music skills are the dangerous part of being outnumbered by bards, typically, not the song effects. Song effects don't tend to stack, after all.

EDIT: Yeah, reprise was put in during 2012.

Shaddus

Maligorn said:

Reprise was in the skillset long before Fugue I thought?

Nooope. Reprise is way younger than fugue. Reprise was generally understood as a way to combat being Fugue'd despite the fact that Fugue ends a song.

Yarith

I could just be the sore thumb here but I felt that fugue was the finesse of bard vs bard combat.
Kind of like the hidden dance of parry|attacks. I just feel that knowing where your song is, where the enemy's might be and how to work around your balances with it is where you show your ability as a capable|shining bard.

Maligorn

Yarith said:

I dunno. I like fugue. 

You can always sit on the 7th/8th stanza and reprise down as you need to. 


Being unable to end a song and being outnumbered by bards doesn't sound that much fun. 
People don't even use it enough for it to be that much of a problem. Just learn who does and sit a bit lower. 

I don't want to sit on my 7th or 8th stanza. Bollocks to that. I transed this skill, I want to be able to use it to its greatest effect. I'm not going to play this stupid bard song war (because I can lol fugue back until -their- song ends too -- and then nobody's having any fun).

Enyalida

Indeed. The newer Cantor effects rewind your song, which was seen mostly as a perk, a defense against fugue. So, everyone got something to rewind their song.

I think everyone assumes you always hold your song at the eighth stanza, so you can eat one fugue, and reprise before your song ends. Then you just end up doing 'fugue wars' on top of your wall wars, just like melders! 

Yarith

Enyalida said:

Indeed. The newer Cantor effects rewind your song, which was seen mostly as a perk, a defense against fugue. So, everyone got something to rewind their song.

I think everyone assumes you always hold your song at the eighth stanza, so you can eat one fugue, and reprise before your song ends. Then you just end up doing 'fugue wars' on top of your wall wars, just like melders! 

I thought most duels between similar classes went like that.
Melders fight over the room, warriors bounce off each other (?) and the like.
That being said, I am a pretty lowbie midbie and have no idea how this game works.

Maligorn said:

Yarith said:

I dunno. I like fugue. 

You can always sit on the 7th/8th stanza and reprise down as you need to. 


Being unable to end a song and being outnumbered by bards doesn't sound that much fun. 
People don't even use it enough for it to be that much of a problem. Just learn who does and sit a bit lower. 

I don't want to sit on my 7th or 8th stanza. Bollocks to that. I transed this skill, I want to be able to use it to its greatest effect. I'm not going to play this stupid bard song war (because I can lol fugue back until -their- song ends too -- and then nobody's having any fun).

Then you just have to accept that your song is going to get fugued away.
You could play on your song timing and be tricky with your 9th stanza. If they're fuging they aren't doing anything else.
That's the way it has been for ages, isn't it?

(Or, if you're versing someone you know who likes to fugue just sit on the 4th stanza and lol at their balances?)

Shuyin

Sit on 7th or 8th stanza if you really want your song up. There's always a counter. You might not like it, but it's a legitimate counter.

Now, is fugue probably too cheap/easy/spammable? Debatable, but I don't think fugue as a mechanic is the worst thing ever.

Like people have said, fugue wars are just the bard version of meld wars, warriors hitting each other's armor, etc.

Maligorn

Actually, if they're using Fugue, they have passive song effects on you (because you're hearing) and it's a very quick balance. If you think melders are dependent on their meld to reach kill conditions, then bards are 2x that. Meld wars aren't fun. Fugue wars aren't fun either. There's nothing about finesse to be seen here.

My rewind song is Convergence, a 2p skill that flings the enemy to another room in the area and bypasses all summon resistance. That's pretty neat, I guess. But even if I had my song sitting at 7 stanza, coordinated bards could fugue my song to death, just like coordinated melders can push a single melder out. It just provides for an unnecessary (I feel) and annoying coding hurdle to have to be able to switch high stanza song effects at 7, 8 and 9 to be able to be competitive, while also cheating myself of strong song effects. At least melders keep all their effects until their very last room is broken.

Maligorn

I see what you all mean by counter in bard to bard combat,

but in its current form it's ridiculous. Moreover, for all involved, there's already a facet of bard combat to combat each other. Captivate audience. It doesn't matter how many songs are in the room that are untouchable if you can keep your allies captivated.

Enyalida

Yarith said:

Enyalida said:

Indeed. The newer Cantor effects rewind your song, which was seen mostly as a perk, a defense against fugue. So, everyone got something to rewind their song.

I think everyone assumes you always hold your song at the eighth stanza, so you can eat one fugue, and reprise before your song ends. Then you just end up doing 'fugue wars' on top of your wall wars, just like melders! 

I thought most duels between similar classes went like that.
Melders fight over the room, warriors bounce off each other (?) and the like.
That being said, I am a pretty lowbie midbie and have no idea how this game works.

And for the most part, it's frustrating for everyone. It's particularly a problem for melders and bards though, as far as being direct counters to each other and being able to basically turn off entire primary skills with little effort (though, as mentioned, Music is very powerful, moreso than all other pre-mastery skills).

Moi

Maligorn: In combat, 9th stanza is for putting your active power/deathsong in, not for an extra passive.

Enyalida

You can always do both, in fact, you SHOULD do both. There is no reason for you to ever have a stanza sitting with an active power imbued into it, ever.

Lavinya

I switch my song powers on alias as it is depending on the situation, it's not really that big a deal and it takes no balance or eq. I don't use threnody in my song for example except certain situations, but I have it ready to slot in if needed. It's not a huge concern to me either way with fugue - I don't sit on my 9th stanza often unless I've been caught hunting so I won't lose my song immediately and I definitely use it in combat, but I wouldn't be bothered if it wasn't a thing.

Lerad

There should be a way for a bard to end another bard's song ala fugue. I have no problem with the mechanic at all.

The problem I do have with it is the fact that the response to that counter takes 7-8 balances to get back to the status quo. Even with encore, it takes the equivalent of 3-4 balances to get back to stanza 7 or 8. Melders have their power-cost effect setup, and wiccans can also group summon for a power cost. Recovering from disloyalty takes 2 stacked commands that doesn't take eq/bal. Bards need an equivalent way to get back to fighting speed.

Things like fugue and inquisition are frustrating mechanics because it imposes a time-down that far exceeds what is required to pull it off. Effectively, you force your opponent to trade off a large amount of time for a small amount of effort. That or you force them to fight with one hand tied behind their back. In inquisition's case, the stun is the killer, of course, so it's not a proper comparison. But even high stun abilities like spiritsinger's 5-spirit winter whatever chord does not require 30 secs of re-setup (unless you die to it).

A bard that doesn't take care to play his song at a stanza where he can react to fugue should pay the price of his carelessness. But the price imposed at the moment is not proportionate to the activation of the counter. Change encore into an ability that starts a song at a specific stanza, costing power equal to the stanza's number. That will make the mechanic more strategic than "Whoo hoo, how do you like that spiked club I stuck up your backside, huh?"

Maligorn

2nd question:

Does this have Overhaul context for a report?

I see at least three good solutions in this thread already.

Kaimanahi

Fugue is really awful, in my opinion. With merian eq, it takes me about 2.2s to fugue somebody. It's so quick that, if you're off bal or hindered at all, you have no chance of saving your song even if you're at the 7th stanza, let alone if there are multiple bards using fugue on a target. I agree that the most frustrating part of all is that you have to eat power and/or time to get back into the fight... just to get fugue'd again.

I would rather see the mechanic to mess with someone's song go away entirely. There are already counters, including earwort/love/paranoia. No one is using fugue to get rid of passive effects; they're using it to wipe your main skillset from the fight, and it's awful.

Ciaran

A simple solution I think would be making fugue only work to reverse stanzas (so the enemy can start stripping songs)

Turn reprise into a quicksilver like defense against fugue.

Boom, if people want to fugue war you, they can. But it won't take them 1 or 2 FAST balances to drop your song and make you a sadbard.

Enyalida

Make the argument that aurics are harder to pull off because of overhaul changes, so you need to rely on songs more, so songs need to be more reliable. Overhaul.

Synkarin

I disagree that fugue needs changing or that bard songs need a fast way to build back up

1) Melders don't have an equivalent of blankchord that allows their entire passive setup to hit an entire enemy group all at once. They can go through and strip protection one at a time, but that takes time. 

2) Bard passive songs are typically more hindering than demesnes, especially considering blankchord. Loralaria has passive double sleep (does any other skill do passive double sleep?) in addition to a prone + bal loss. Staryhymn will also prone + blind and prevent random cure. Melds have like paralysis or a 1 sec stun, or a prone. 

3) Bard active songs are pretty darn powerful. Crowcaw, Pfarewell, Skysforzando, Queenslament (maybe not without vapors now?) 

4) Bard songs stack with each other, especially the damage songs. Things like Firefugue, the Caco damage based on disease affs(name escaping me) etc. Melds don't stack with each other because you can only have one meld. 

5) Bards aren't really super reliant on their song to kill. You don't actually need a song to pull of DCC, or soulless.

6) Lastly, you can combat fugue pretty easily. If I know I'm going to get fugued, I'll roll in with a song on stanza 4 or 5 and let them fugue away. If they're busy trying to drop my song, they aren't doing much else. It's not really that big of a deal, everyone can fugue, it's just a matter of if it's worth it or not. Sometimes it is and other times it's a waste of time, because people die before they can really hurt you with your song. 

Edit: It's also probably important to note that only two song specs have 'rewind' abilities, the other 4 don't.

Maligorn

Synkarin said:

I disagree that fugue needs changing or that bard songs need a fast way to build back up

1) Melders don't have an equivalent of blankchord that allows their entire passive setup to hit an entire enemy group all at once. They can go through and strip protection one at a time, but that takes time. 

2) Bard passive songs are typically more hindering than demesnes, especially considering blankchord. Loralaria has passive double sleep (does any other skill do passive double sleep?) in addition to a prone + bal loss. Staryhymn will also prone + blind and prevent random cure. Melds have like paralysis or a 1 sec stun, or a prone. 

3) Bard active songs are pretty darn powerful. Crowcaw, Pfarewell, Skysforzando, Queenslament (maybe not without vapors now?) 

4) Bard songs stack with each other, especially the damage songs. Things like Firefugue, the Caco damage based on disease affs(name escaping me) etc. Melds don't stack with each other because you can only have one meld. 

5) Bards aren't really super reliant on their song to kill. You don't actually need a song to pull of DCC, or soulless.

6) Lastly, you can combat fugue pretty easily. If I know I'm going to get fugued, I'll roll in with a song on stanza 4 or 5 and let them fugue away. If they're busy trying to drop my song, they aren't doing much else. It's not really that big of a deal, everyone can fugue, it's just a matter of if it's worth it or not. Sometimes it is and other times it's a waste of time, because people die before they can really hurt you with your song. 

1). Maintaining a blankchord on an enemy group is not that feasible unless multiple bards are willing to sacrifice the power for passives, and can already be countered by a quick and smart captivate audience.

2). You make it sound like it's double sleep all the time. Gotta sacrifice a gem slot on my violin for a 25% chance at double sleep.

3). Bard actives are already hindered enough by earwort. Also, Queenslament still does blackout.

4). Captivate Audience versus a team that has more scary bards.

5). haha, ahah. Not everyone has cement socks to stay in Octave. Soulless maybe? If they're hindered to the point by friends that you can fling it under blackout and not get hindered themselves? Also, DCC has been behaving pretty weirdly lately. I bugged it already and it said it was resolved, but I'm not sure it actually was.

6). You don't think it's ridiculous to have to have your song that low just in case some fugue happy bard comes along? I will admit that it's a pretty amusing notion that they're fugueing you up to speed from stanza 4 to stanza 9 for 5p and 5 balances, but I think that, for the most part, that's pretty impractical.



Solutions:

1). Delete.

2).

Maligorn said:

But failing that, I'd love if Fugue gave you a chance to Reprise to negate its effect, a 5 second window. The enemy bard Fugueing wouldn't have to channel it, so the onus would be on the afflicted bard to reprise in time. Or play their song forward if Adagio'd.

You can only be "fugue afflicted" by one bard at any time.

3). Raise the power cost to 3p.

4).

Lerad said:

 Change encore into an ability that starts a song at a specific stanza, costing power equal to the stanza's number. That will make the mechanic more strategic than "Whoo hoo, how do you like that spiked club I stuck up your backside, huh?"

5). and 6).

Ciaran said:

A simple solution I think would be making fugue only work to reverse stanzas (so the enemy can start stripping songs)

Turn reprise into a quicksilver like defense against fugue.

7). Some combination thereof.

Enyalida

We should have dissolve-chord. Dissolve-chord should cost 4p and replace whirl staff, which does nothing.

Yarith

So instead of actively fuguing you want to spend 3 power blankchording and taking turns captivate-chording again?

Edit: 

While this already can|should|does happen, I imagine without fugue this is -all- that would happen.