I was in the Trent area recently, fighting trees. The music in this zone was very calming, much like the other music in the area and in Trent, but it made no sense. You would think there ought to be something less calming playing when you are fighting giant sentient angry trees, but there is not.

I mostly enjoyed the variable music in combat zones but here is an example in the opposite direction when the music update took away combat music from combat. I hope one day we get the chance to return to more fitting music.

Indeed.  I loved the fact that the area's msuic faded seemlessly to battle music and when the fighting was over seemlessly faded back to the area's music.  Amazing stuff.  a wonderful experience.  Now, it's random tunes, some of which is fitting and other music that fits so poorly that it's torture.  With dead air usually in bewteen.  Before? Seemless transistion.  Man, I hope they change it again someday, back to what it was.  Now Trent's music fits Trent.  A nice, western, country tune evoking lumber yards.  I shouldn't hear it just south of Calpheon in a barn right outside the city.  Doesn't make sense.  So: the next time they break the music in this game- I don't know how often they think they need to tinker with the fundamentals of this game- but the next time they break the music of this game, I hope they break it back to how it was before they broke it.

To anyone who represents PA who might someday read through this thread, please notice the brilliant idea set out so many times: create a toggle so that if someone wants to listen to random music, they can, and the rest of us can listen to the music as it was supposed to be, so that we can kind of enjoy this game again.

Thanks!

Also:  Just fought Karanda tonight.  The area around her nest has several "musical zones" that make no sense where they are, or what they play.  The Forced PVP themesong plays at the bottom of the mountain, just outside of Florin.  Um.... WHY?  I hate this musical chaos so much, that I must use some forceful words: Whatever idiot arranged and implemented this musical mishmash should have their head examined.  The musical situation is so nonsensical, its BAD.  Songs shifting every 5 seconds and have no relevance to the location they supposed to be providing ambience for..... again, whoever thought this musical debacle was a good idea should never again have anything to do with music.

Doesn't look like this one has reached the feedback board yet, but it certainly has the votes.  Maybe adjust the OP to fit the feedback format?  Just add the header lines and leave the existing post content as the description or whatever.

100% agree.

This system could be very nice if properly tuned, but so much more thought needs to be put into preserving the identity of different zones and smoothing out the transitions between each.

I think right now the music zones are just too 'small' in a lot of places so you're forced into constant transitions while moving around. The zones themselves should probably cover a lot more area.

Well, I'm thinking that's going to have to be up to SwordTrickster, who started this hard-fought battle, but I don't think he's been adding to it since it started.  Maybe We'll have to start a 2.0 thread that references this one?

 Yeah, I think the orignal idea was to allow the music to remain fresh and interesting.  The problem: that cannot happen if you're cycling through the same tracks in certain areas.  They too get old.  And when they're irrelevant to the area/situation, not only is the music old and completely NOT fresh (because 6 repeated tracks get just as old as one, if your playing a game where you grind the same areas) NOW we have the pain of enduring music that doesn't fit.  And when riding through Mediah.... man, I just can't stand it.  Poor Mediah, lost its cultural identity in its music.  Whoever thought that a sporty, rock n' roll game theme would fit a Middle Eastern style fantasy country..... and they even composed a couple of variants based on it... such work for something that doesn't work... it's SAD.  I'll just stop because my words from here on out won't be pretty.  But they would accurately reflect the torture heaped on my ears these past 9 months...

I went back and changed the OP. But to be honest I don't think it's about the format as some threads at the Feedback Status are not formatted as requested by the GMs. The problem is rather that it appears that the topic of music seems rather low on priorities for them.

I suggest raising awareness through contacting a GM via Discord or Reddit. Or by leaving comments on the Pearl Abyss Music YouTube channel.

As for me I semi-retired the game and do mostly AFK-fishing these days. Not having proper music sucks pretty much the fun out of the game.

Thanks for the update anyway.  I finally just turned the music off, which takes a lot out of the game.

Ran across some old reviews of other games recently, and music is literally the game changer that differentiates an ok game from an amazing one.

If they care at all about the identity of their open world then they'll have to go back and have another look at their music format. I believe it will happen eventually, but you're right, it's probably pretty low on their priority list.

I for one am joining the list of those determined to keep this topic alive until it makes it to the board :) As stated in the post above: good music is what differentiates an okay game from an amazing one.

Thanks for updating it and kicking off this important thread!  I'm sure we're in for the long-haul, considering how long some of the threads addressing the degradation of art have been up and running, some from early 2021.  Hope we can all endure the pain, and hopefully the Devs can take notice of these seriously important issues.

Bump for feedback board~