Title: A musical dilemma... - [Feedback to Patch 13.04.2022]
Family Name: SwordTrickster

Region (NA/EU): EU

Good evening everyone,

So, today we finally got something for music lovers with the patch. But unfortunately with a not so insignificant catch.

The rotation of the music robs the individual areas and sceneries of their identity. When I hear the music of Olvia in Velia or the music of the Temple of Gyfin Rhasia in Polly's Forest, it doesn't feel right. Music gives these localities an appropriate identity. The new way the music is played is without proper context.

A similar problem has hit the Winter Mountain. The fact that none of the music is assigned to a specific place makes them seem less memorable than they could be.

And I really like the music there.

I understand the developers' intention to offer more variation, but this is not the right way to do it.

So, what can be done about it?

1. A toggle in the options would be an idea to be able to switch between the fixed tracks and the shuffle mode.

2. An option to switch between the old and the new arrangements.

3. Something like a playlist, where you can assign the tracks to the corresponding locations and battles yourself.

In this way, atmospheric integrity can be ensured. While at the same time also allowing the choice of freedom.

I'm not sure if PA will read this here. I know they get feedback on Reddit sometimes, so feel free to share it there too.

EDIT: The current implentation at the Red Battlefield is just a bit too chaotic. Different music on getting hit and then another piece plays while respawning. Just weird.

I haven't has a chance to experience this yet.  The patch notes made it sound like they added new music to each zone so that it wasn't the same thing all the time.  But instead they just took all of a region's music and indiscriminately play it anywhere in any zone there? Not good.

I remember at the recent ball where they displayed before and after music maps.  Anyone have an image of those?  It seemed that they were going for less geographically fragmented and more context dependent.  That raised some small flags with me because of the potential for just this sort of thing.

Well, they are just getting started with this new scheme.  Let's give it a chance to play out a bit (heh).  Constructive feedback will help.

Like: If we get mount riding music, I want the option to turn that off specifically.  I like hearing the music change as I cross regions, especially on long rides. Which happens a lot.

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eta: The Velia Beach fishing music was nice and chill. Some slow thing, and a slow jazzy piece. Now - terrible.  I'm fishing, who needs some charged up fight song? Or a tense mood piece?  I'm fishing!!  And now large silent blocks in between pieces.  And volume too loud when it's there.  And the new pieces: too short, too noticeable, and putting those in a loop is really annoying.  I'll take the longer, lower volume more appropriate pieces.  Those actually amount to more variety over the relative lengths of the two approaches.

New music: swing and a miss.  Dammit. 

Oh, well, guess I'll be turning the volume down now, and maybe entirely off.

There was an earlier topic here about how the original music was better than what we had at the time.  And now it has changed again.  For the worse, so far.  Just keeps degrading.

Disappointment.  Hope I find better in my travels later.

... Hang on, some new piece came up.  Better pace and mood.  Maybe there's some hope - ?  But still doesn't fit - anything.  ... And gone.  what was that, ten bars? And now long silence.

Yeah, live blogging.  I'll let it go for now.  But you get the picture.

The music I experienced while sailing from Arehaza to Epheria pushed me to start posting on the forums... I've posted a similar thread to the forums, however I'm starting to think this is a bug, that maybe they left it to an AI and a set of Keywords to create the playlists for the different music regions, instead of setting them up themselves. This is a feature that probably needed to be on Test Server a bit longer with more player feedback before putting it out there... however putting this feature out just before Easter weekend could be part of the testing process too so they get the feedback they need to improve the system. I really hope this is just a bug in their system, especially with their goal of improving their storytelling. Music is such an important part of that.

Can't quote across threads - oh well.

Port Epheria: hanging around for a bit, doesn't seem too bad. So maybe that wasn't luck earlier after all.

Velia to Valencia via Sand Grain, Pilgrim's Sanctum: Sharing: There were a few jarring spots, mostly ok, but not the same feel.

Auto-pathed from Valencia back to Velia across the north of Mediah: again, not as bad as my first shock would have indicated.  But again, missing the local distictiveness.

Auto-pathed from Velia around the periphery of the entire continent: Olvia, Port Epheria, Star's End, Grana, O'draxxia, Pilgrim's End, Eilton, then back around Mediah south to north and back to Velia (about an hour or so).

And one ride up from Grana to Port Epheria through mid-continent.

And you know, it's not as bad as it first seemed. There are some glaring issues though:

- Some pieces are just wrong for some areas.  There should be a blacklist of sorts to prevent that from happening.

- Some pieces are so distinctive to certain locales that they need to be reserved for them and prioritized in whatever loops are used.

- Some pieces are re-purposed from their intended loop use, and are far too short.  They need to be looped a bit to balance them against the longer pieces.

- Too much silience between pieces, and too abrupt transitions on/off for some.

Could be right about automated music choices still needing tuning.  But - it still feels like now we have a sound-track game, instead of atmosperic local music.  I get that it's by design, but something feels missing now.  I think regions with more diversity are more susceptible to incongruous choices, and need more attention.

Some of the more dramatic pieces that I liked seemed awol/mia.  And some other dramatic pieces - need to be reserved for dramatic events and locations.

Oddly, the new region doesn't sound nearly as good as before the patch.  That seems wrong, since they just released it - surely it already had the new music approach? Maybe not.

Perhaps when the riding music is in place it will mask a lot of this.  At the cost of even more local character? Or will it put it back for the ride-throughs?  Guess we will have to wait and see.  The main issues noted above are still apparent when just sitting in an area though.

...but please, please: fix that Velia Beach nonsense.  Please.

This is really jarring and immersion breaking.
Please provide a toggle.

As someone who actually listens to the in-game music, I'm rather disappointed in the way that this system was implemented. I wholeheartedly agree with the OP and others on what can be done. I was actually hoping PA was gonna add new tracks that would match a region/area's theme instead of just throwing them all in a blender and hoping for the best. Adding a toggle for now would alleviate the issue until a better solution is found.

I already suggested a music player. No dice yet...

This! Yesterday I grinded a bit at Titium's Valley. The temple grounds in the lair are soundwise totally bad now. During my rotation 4 different tracks were at play. None of them the original theme instead some tracks from all over Valencia which where quite unfitting for the area.
And... Like you said too abrupt transitions with odd episodes of silence. In the end I had turn the music off completely, because it's too jarring to play like that.

And yeah, Velia Beach is super weird now.

@Dknight55

They would be wise to implement such a thing.

Anyway. It can't stay as it is now.

I'm glad you've written something. Yes, overall identity of theme attached to location is lost. Which is really disappointing.

Also the music chops and changes so much whenever you move about. I was riding around in the desert and no track finished, it basically was changing every 30 s (if that), and there was no break between pieces (unless you call 5-10 s a break, which it isn't, not to appreciate the natural ambience as was intended by PA). I don't want to stop and have my character do nothing just in the hope that a piece of music I really like to hear continues playing. This isn't unique to the desert though it seems to happen everywhere, it's like everytime our character changes zone (no matter how small or quickly) the music changes too.

When I heard about the update coming it sounded quite good in theory, after all the music composed for Black Desert is on the whole so wonderful. However how it's presented currently in-game is a huge detraction. For the first time I'm thinking about consistently having the music turned off whilst playing, and this makes me sad because it's so nice when delivered in a manner that shows respect for the pieces. It's just too much right now; too many score changes, too quickly, constantly.

Surely, Hwiman Ryu, this wasn't your vision. It is basically a cacophony of sound at the moment.

it's horrible. I want music like before...  5 years i play... first time i music turned off during i play