[2019] I'd like to hear more music while playing

Original Post — Direct link

Hey,

While playing I've found myself thinking there's a lot of silence in this game. While playing in freeplay, while loading, navigating menus and much more I've been noticing that there's no music playing. The game has a really awesome soundtrack, and I'd like to hear it more. I've even found myself manually playing the soundtrack manually while playing, because of the lack of music ingame. Especially the (long) loading screens I find the silence painfully noticeable.

Currently it seems it's mostly used on main menu, combat and certain missions situations. I'd like to hear the soundtrack while exploring and playing in general. I miss the moments where you're exploring the awesome landscape and the iconic soundtrack hits, like the situations I typically experince in RPGs like Skyrim, The Witcher 3 etc.

Just something I've been noticing and I haven't seen anyone mention yet. Thought I'd give my feedback and see if others agree.

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over 5 years ago - /u/BioWareJer - Direct link

Originally posted by Xathras1

Tagging /u/BioWareJer in something actually related to Audio for once!

The thread hasn't gotten too much traction, but I feel this is important feedback I'd like you reach you. Personally I think having the soundtrack playing more often would increase the gameplay experience a lot!

So we have a pretty dynamic contextual music system. It responds to a multitude of parameters (it's actually sets of huge 12 channel music files with overlays being triggered based on gameplay).

Enemy type Enemy proximity How many enemies Whether or not you are being targeted How much badass stuff you are doing (headshots, abilities, melee)

The system aggregates all of those and controls what is playing based on them.

Then on specific missions where we know exactly what is happening we script specific music sometimes. So it's something we can tune in live service, and even based on power level/difficulty setting etc. I will pass this feedback on to our music team and see what we can do!

over 5 years ago - /u/BioWareJer - Direct link

Originally posted by Kyoj1n

It might be that it should play more stuff while we're actually doing "nothing", that's when people will notice the silence more.

Noted - good feedback!

over 5 years ago - /u/BioWareJer - Direct link

Originally posted by BigBad01

Why is Fort Tarsis so silent? Imagine if the Citadel didn't have the awesome background music?!?

We have amped up the music and frequency of the score and the diegetic (in world) music for day 1 :)

over 5 years ago - /u/BioWareJer - Direct link

Originally posted by SioVern

There's an awesome soundtrack that I only heard once. It sounded pretty epic, but it triggered when I was doing nothing, like at the start of a freeplay session. It sounded great, and I'd like to hear it more, but it does feel like the dynamic system is not giving us a lot of music variety - for the most part I hear only 3-4 soundtracks, and quite sparsely.

Yeah, in Freeplay it's pretty much randomly selecting from a pool of around 10 - on some areas we pick it specifically. In other areas it's all custom (mostly missions).

We will continue adding more throughout live service :)

over 5 years ago - /u/BioWareJer - Direct link

Originally posted by BronzeKnight

I also feel the music is a bit fleeting. Namely in fort tarsis when I log in it’s so quiet i wonder if my sound is on. Any way to keep the title screen music going in FT?

Hahaha, the irony! We had the most annoying bug where it wouldn't STOP.

Not the title screen - but there will be a lot more score - and it will change/ramp up with different phases and activity levels in the Fort. Also Day/Night affects this behaviour :)

over 5 years ago - /u/BioWareJer - Direct link

Originally posted by BronzeKnight

Heh, for me I would like that bug!

That aside I think maybe just more “room noise” in the basement area would be good. (What do you even call that area? The Freelancer lounge?) but just some thing like cyphers mumbleling, lucky jack shuffling some papers just, something, more than what is there right now should help with the whole “are my speeders muted?” feel of that log in area.

Yeah 100% :)

It's a mix thing, and should be addressed in the day 1 patch! If not, let me know and we can continue to tweak :)

over 5 years ago - /u/BioWareJer - Direct link

Originally posted by Xathras1

Thank you for your response, this had exactly the effect I was hoping for. Like mentioned by others it's mostly noticed when doing 'nothing' and exploring and the likes. I'd also like to highlight loading screens as well, as I often find myself staring at a black loading screen with no music while waiting. Personally I got Anthem on a M2 NVME disc, so I can imagine people playing on HDDs has it amplified even more.

Either way thank you for you diligent work, looking forward to see how the game evolves with time.

Thank you! We will continue to listen and improve - we really do value your feedback (and patience!).

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