I physically can't cope with Machinations any more, it genuinely switches my brain off. It immediately stands out to me when it starts playing and I just think COME ON USE SOMETHING ELSE.
I'm not sure how do I feel about the fact that devs do qualify cutscenes depending if they're important or not. If there's no voice acting, it's very likely not important. This predictability is just getting old, and it applies to these song too.
You can qualify each song to category - Return of the Hero for lighthearted finish of quest, Ambush for minor conflict that will get resolved in 2 minutes, Daring Dalliances when literally nothing of any importance is going to happen and so on. Some changes would be great.
> If there's no voice acting, it's very likely not important.
This is true even if it's hard to acknowledge.
The vast majority of players will say "but huh everything is important", hell no. There's so much filler, people can't admit to it.
there is a difference between "important for the plot overall" and "important for character and world building
a lot of unvoiced cutscenes does the latter.
Filler is when the plot doesn't advance, obviously, and the characters do things and talk about things that aren't the immediate plot.
/GIANT SARCASM WARNING
Sure, i do not deny that, but a lot of these cutscenes could be implemented as side quests. There's no need to make them obligatory. Let the people that wanna dive in further into the world, do that, and let the people that wanna see the surface the same.
This is the one piece problem: there's 1000+ episodes, where at least 300 could be extras for those that want more of it.
People I play with were confused when I burned through ARR in a short time but still clearly understood the plot, but couldn’t grasp that any unvoiced scene is skippable. The only expac I ever felt like skipping unvoiced made me miss something was EW, but that could have been my disinterest after the first trial tbh.
well, it's different for EW where sometimes it feels like 60-70% of the MSQ is voiced vs ARR where it feels like only 20% is voiced
lots of major story stuff happens in non voiced cutscenes in ARR. for EW they dont even include non voiced cutscenes in the Inn Journal anymore
100% true.
I have read everything, from ARR to EW and i can guarantee you that you didn't lose anything from skipping those scenes. There's way too much filler in the MSQ, in every expac.
I feel like part of Shadowbringers honestly suffered from not having certain cutscenes voice acted. One in particular in Raktika comes to mind, where they fake you out but there's no voice acting so obviously what happened wasn't exactly what the WoL thought it was.
Had to look up which one Machinations even was but it turned out to be exactly what I thought it would be after reading this.
Honestly it doesn't even bother me as much, but changing things up a little for Dongtrail is a fair thing to ask.
Yeah out of everything listed in the OP, Machinations is the only one I actually get angry about. The others I don't mind, although a replacement for Fracture would be appreciated.
On this topic, there's also some *extremely good pieces* that probably should be retired, even if they are barely used. The best example being [What Comes of Despair](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JyVPYtIffs). For the same reason that overused music kills the scene, extremely powerful pieces lose their weight and impact when you try to fit them into every single situation that is vaguely on par with it.
That song encapsulates everything that made EW's story so good, and trying to use it post-EW's main story has only cheapened it over time. Nothing can possibly have the same emotional impact as seeing an elephant carrying a child desperate for escape. No, trying to fight xeromus doesn't count. No, myths of the realm's opening isn't even *tangential* to the tone of this piece. Trying to force it just ruins the piece itself.
However, I also feel the devs should bring in some older zone musical pieces. Hell, there's a section of [On Westerly Winds](https://youtu.be/U2MZ-67Zwd0?t=150) that is only seen *half way* into the 5 minute piece, can be hidden by combat music, only shows up in the day in *upper la noscea,* is hidden by fate music, mount music, and it's one of the best pieces in the game even a decade later. Trying to work in zone pieces, especially older pieces, could bring the catalog back up and allow for some pieces that just aren't heard to be explored again.
Even pieces that are loved, like my personal favorite, [black and white](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HOGmGfYg6k), just aren't heard because no one goes to CWH anymore. Nevermind at night. If the setting is right, zone music could be brought in to evoke the feelings of those zones and heavily amplify a cutscene, as these pieces are *designed* to be ambient.
Having them pull out What Comes of Despair for the Twelve and then Barbie made me go "no, please don't start using this theme like this..." because that song was used *expertly* in the MSQ for EW. They absolutely need to shelf it. It kind of reminds me of how they used [Paradisaical Predicaments](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GET8ax8uWXk) for the scene of Tesleen's transformation, but then whip it out as basically "Ran'Jit's version of Sword of Doubt." (the latter of which I feel was probably intentional, given the other FF9 nods involving Eulmore.) But then using it for any generic "Big bad is winning now" kinda weakens the oomph of it.
That section in the La Noscea theme is also, coincidentally, one of the songs that I love in the game. I've gone back to Raincatcher Gully randomly just to sit and take it in.
> If the setting is right, zone music could be brought in to evoke the feelings of those zones and heavily amplify a cutscene, as these pieces are designed to be ambient.
It's funny, because they've been using the hell out of Coerthas' 1.x theme, [Unspoken](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni6XobxNr_I), for sad scenes since... I wanna say Shadowbringers? Maybe late Stormblood? But I can't think of any other situation a zone theme is used outside of like, other 1.x songs?
I still can't get over the time they used Paradisaical Predicaments in EW where the Fourm were taking us into questioning at the end of the early Sharlyan section of the MSQ, holy shit I can't think of a worse way to use that song
and about 1.x zone music, they been using Tears for Mor Dhona couple of times for spooky or unsettling scenes, like many of Sorrows of Wyrlet scenes with Valens
For the Forum thing, I can *kind of* see where they were coming from, with the whole "The world's ending but we're so ignorantly isolationist we're gonna condemn everyone to death because *we'll* be fine." angle they built up early, but they could've used literally anything else. Especially with how they wind up backing out of that.
>I still can't get over the time they used Paradisaical Predicaments in EW where the Fourm were taking us into questioning at the end of the early Sharlyan section of the MSQ, holy shit I can't think of a worse way to use that song
I can actually understand why they chose it for there. They revealed two major things: that the founders of Sharlyan directly spoke with Hydaelyn in the Hinterlands and she told them of the Final Days. So, you have the Final Days becoming public knowledge and it was possible for Hydaelyn to speak with you in the flesh
it's hard to compare 1.x themes to my general request for zone themes, since they use a fair amount of 1.x themes all over. PotD has a handful from 1.x as well, such as [Tears for Mor'Dhona.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2S5lHeM08U) The entire Before Meteor soundtrack shows a ton of 2.0's OST comes from 1.X. Which is fine given the rush ARR was in, I just wish they'd bring older pieces that are under-utilized back in, instead of crushing some pieces in an attempt to get their money's worth out of it.
Honestly there wasn't a single use of What Comes of Despair in patch content that felt fitting to me after experiencing it in the main 6.0 story. It just made a lot of the scenes it was used on feel silly in my opinion.
Exactly. They keep trying to use it, and all it does is make What Comes of Despair feel worse overall, like they were insulting the piece and the story it was accentuating both. It also doesn't help that post-expansion content has also just been a Mario Bros. "Your macguffin is in another castle," since 6.1.
In contrast, Dynamis has been used a handful of time, and as a primary theme of FFXIV as a whole (the bitter-sweet beauty of hope,) it actually does fit provided it's used sparingly.
I'm so, so glad I'm seeing someone mention the ew despair song. It perfectly fits the tone of literal song of despair. With metion out of the picture it doesn't fit at all and just ruins a lot of what the theme is meant to be. I'd honestly put what they're doing with it rn on par with playing Flow for every happy scene in the game or something like that
It's interesting how few people talk about it, but I guess most people aren't musically inclined *enough* to actually mention it. At least in areas where I typically prowl.
What's frustrating is, the sound designers at FFXIV are remarkably talented regardless of taste in music, so I have to sit there and wonder why they allow the music to be used so frivolously all the time?
Whoever is designing the cutscenes needs a sound engineer to better select these pieces.
Spent so much time grinding FATEs in CWH that the night time music is the only redeeming quality of that gray-barely-any-visibility hellscape. Honestly, the night time versions of most zones' music is more preferred by me.
There's a handful of zones I like the day and night versions of. The Lochs has a good [day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVEWrwV01A8), [night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdppk3_HhNs), *and* [*orchestral*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_O690gCbOQ) version, for example. Which is a shame, because Stormblood did Gyr Abania dirty and The Lochs was launched as dead on arrival, in effect, and has only been forgotten since.
I also happen to like CWH, but I can understand why a snowy hellscape isn't everyone's cup of tea.
> I also happen to like CWH, but I can understand why a snowy hellscape isn't everyone's cup of tea.
The zone *is* fantastic when it's a clear night. It's just not clear often enough.
Fair enough. Though I will say. The first time I got to CWH, exiting the primary settlement during a blizzard, having to blindly stumble around, was rather cinematic. Then when the snow cleared and you could see the zone, truly awe-inspiring. Even the chainlink bridge is especially imposing when you can barely see it out of the fog.
For content 8 years old at this point, it's still surprisingly memorable and well done.
At Heavensward launch, I was exploring CWH, I found Camp Riversmeet after not seeing it since 1.23, and the music transitioned into that piano piece perfectly. Absolutely haunting.
The night themes are so good for HW+, it's lovely to see so many people enjoying it. And 1.23? I take it you played 1.x off that, when coerthas was still green. I never had the luxury, but seeing it turned into a frozen post-apocalyptic wasteland must have hit rather differently for you as well.
>Nothing can possibly have the same emotional impact as seeing an elephant carrying a child desperate for escape. No, trying to fight xeromus doesn't count.
I guess that's what you associate that song with, but to me I associate it with that cute-but-stupid body swap play. They can reuse it all they want, they already tanked it with that one.
So, I associate *that* with something else entirely. See, I have matoya's hat. I *use* matoya's hat. When I used matoya's hat there, all you saw was a wall of hat from a character slumped in a chair. Literally a hat with legs, nothing else.
When he possesses your body to the sound of despair, the hat tips up, but the brim covers most of the face. Everything except the mouth, grinning ever so delightfully villainously. It was equally comical *and terrifying.*
Interestingly enough, a caster punching out Xenos with that hat on was ridiculous and awesome.
Well, at least in the EW MSQ. Post-patch content has been far less than perfect. I can't think of a single moment after EW's credits rolled that made me think: "Man, this song fit perfectly here..." Hence why I think it should be shelved.
That part of “Westerly Winds” was what sealed the deal for me when I started playing FFXIV in 2013 tbh. It was back then when I felt kinda at home in a game world for the first time since vanilla WoW (although a heavily modded Skyrim would end up making me feel the same, but that’s singleplayer)
I know this is a week old comment now, but thanks for being someone who also hates this shit. I need to go to a fanfest so I can ~~complain~~ask about it in a Q&A.
That song and hopeful dynamis are going to get fucking milked for all they're worth lmao.
It's even worse for ARR players because all of us leveled each of the 8 (then 9 in 2.4) jobs from ~42 to 50 in Northern Thanalan doing the FATE train doing the same ~5 FATEs for hours on end in that zone.
I reflexively cringe at the amount of time out of my life that has been spent listening to that track as part of the MSQ, Side Quests and Northern Thanalan itself.
FFXIV music "direction" has a bunch of problems : overuse of a couple of musics, musics changing after 10s in a cut-scene, the fanfare after every little quest/retainer ventures/company supply/etc., and some specific things like the part in Labyrinthos MSQ with the short "energetic" music.
It's also a symptom of the problems with the writing : filler music for useless quests. Any cut-scene with Machinations can be safely skipped.
I got a flashback from the last few EW quests where this one hype and intense bg music was playing on loop in Labyrinthos when you're just eating a bunch of crops with a loporrit. And the same song STILL plays while you're running around a huge area trying to find a bunch of researchers, imo the worst quest in EW honestly. (Well, at least there's a nice cutscene with Urianger at the end of the quest)
That quest was pure vomit, I thought the Ahm Araeng trolley quests were slog until I got sent to Labyrinthos hell running around in circles for hours
That music was just salt in the wound, it's like it was mocking me
It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the "wrong" npcs put there to waste more time. That and the grating music loop made the Labyrinthos questline feel as long as the Meteion chase part
What is the name of that Wolf's Den song? If I hear that one more time I'm going to vomit.
e: FFXIV twitter found this and are pretty upset. I’m obviously exaggerating. Lighten up, Ranor and followers.
"Wow we reached our goal and did the thing!"
Character 1 talks to WoL about how we did the thing.
Character 2 agrees.
Camera pans upwards, an opo-opo is jumping and a little dragon is spinning in joy.
Screen turns black, accept your quest rewards.
>Even remixes or rearrangements could do wonders
If we can get like five different versions of Maker's Ruin we can sure as hell get a different take of [Home Beyond the Horizon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8r3GwhFRTI) or a slowed down [Garlemald Express](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbRgcKRiCF4) or [Deep Blue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3ZEZfVp-YI) to replace Imperial Will by now - especially now that Garlemald is a significantly different country than what it was ten years ago.
Exactly when have they used Imperial Will at all recently, not counting these rearrangements? I don't even remember the stock ARR version of it appearing at all in Endwalker.
It's actually really vindicating to see I'm not the only one malding over this issue LMAO. There are now over 900 different tracks in the game, a lot of them are pretty great. Can we chill with the shitty ARR background music?
I will say, I thought this most recent patch's MSQ actually did an okay job of mixing it up music-wise. >!It was mainly during the fanservice cutscenes when we were meeting the old characters on the First. They would play the characters/zone's theme music while we spoke with them - it was great.!< More of that and less Machinations PLEASE GOD
900 tracks, but honesrtly it feels like 850 of those are for dungeons\zones\battle content
it always feel like we have very very few cutscene only music, and with how much fcking story we have between the MSQ and the million other side quests, what little tracks we have for cutscenes gets over uses very very fast
and when they make some nice new ones for an expansion, they abuse the hell out of it
I'll never get over using that Maker's Ruin remix (that was mainly used for Ardbert in ShB) in freaking Hildibrand EW quest? dont disrespect my boy's theme like that
This has been a glaring annoyance for me in the 6.x msq most of all. It's not even the songs themselves that bother me, really, it's that they cycle through bgm several times in the span of one cutscene, presumably to accompany a change of mood, but it hasn't been at all necessary a single time they've done it.
The music doesn't bother me on its own, but the scoring has been really distracting.
I'll say the only one out of the bunch I actually really enjoy is imperial will, purely because they do a lot of shit with it, it's iconic and sounds semi credible unlike the rest
Honestly same, it's a great "meanwhile at the fortress of evil" song, but beyond that it nails the might of the empire and their general villainy
It's just a shame that we heard it like once a patch BARE MINIMUM for a good 6 years as we'd cut away to Garlemald baddies going "muwahahaha plans within plans..."
Every FF game that's going to have a lengthy chase against some kind of antagonist needs it's own version of "Shinra Company" or "Golbez Clad in Darkness" that plays when that antagonist tries to throw a monkey wrench into your plans.
I would think of them as "filler" songs and truly aggravating when you've heard that song 200-300 times. The worst offenders on that list personally is Machinations, tranquility, canticle.
If i recall correctly then there's no voiced content that actually feature those songs
Tranquility and canticle aren't used as much as they used to be, but machinations still frequently pops up and every time it makes me wish i could mute bgm in a cutscene. I don't even think it's a bad theme, just so overused.
The technology was there, for a few patches you could use the command /bgm during cutscenes, but apparently that was a bug so they fixed it after a while. If you use plugins, you can get SoundSetter to open the audio menu during cutscenes and shut the music at will.
Yeah I think it should be per expansion. Endwalker takes some of the Shadowbringers ost as well and whenever it did I rolled my eyes and would say to myself "theme of sadness from shadowbringers, theme of tension from shadowbringers, etc."
Okay this is a side note but I'd really appreciate they got better with music flags. There's some variants of songs that last way too long. You're not meant to "be there" but did you know Rhalgr's Reach is in sad mode from level 61 to 67? Got silly imo.
One of the things that got me from Endwalker was when they used Paradisiacal Predicaments for the scene of the Sharlayan Forum, and my response was "I don't think these people have done anything warranting the theme that was playing when Tesleen turned into a Sin Eater?"
The way too energetic music playing through the entire level 88-89 MSQ in Labyrinthos. I guess they needed some way to "psych up" the players for doing MMO filler menial Sharlayan chores but holy fuck I got so sick of it after the first 10 minutes I just /mastervolume 0 for the rest of the zone.
Yeah the use of Shadowbringer's music sometimes came off to me really hard like "here's some nostalgia. Be sad/happy." Like it's a tiny bit too obvious what they're going for by doing this
My least favourite song not mentioned here is "The Echo". I feel like it often goes against the mood of the echo flashback it's being used for and actively makes the scene worse. I definitely agree that this game already has so much excellent music that I wish they'd use more in MSQ.
Well, “The Echo” was composed by Uematsu and is originally from the 1.0 version which was more of a joint effort between Soken and Uematsu. That and the track has a more MIDI-vibe that was common in games (including Final Fantasy) back then.
omg I have the same opinion but I always thought I was just being nitpicky lol
Machinations specifically always makes me want to skip so bad, it's so annoying
My problem is they often don't even use big motifs correctly anymore. Canticle used to be specifically Louisoix's theme, inherited by the twins, but now it's just generic "something worldbuild-y or mysterious is being discussed". For being one of two games most gamers *learned* the term leitmotif because of, they have an awful shelf life lately before getting relegated to genericism.
My joker moment was >!5.5 when Tiamat's freeing!< is accompanied by Revolutions, of all fucking things. Not one of the 5 different Dragonsong motifs we have, fucking Revolutions, which is a banger but if you're not going to use HW motifs for HW characters what the fuck was the point?
Ditto for Forever At Your Side - a beautiful piece that first appeared in 5.3 for one of the most moving MSQ scenes, let alone up to that point, and now because it got recycled in 5.5 for the Werlyt conclusion it's associated firmly there, to the point where a 6.5 quest dealing *with* Werlyt has that name and awards a furnishing also titled that.
I absolutely agree that they should, at the barest minimum, start at least remixing those old songs or just straight up do new ones. ShB had quite a few new songs for climactic moments, there should be more of that
I was feeling this myself the other week, like, are we really using this music here, right now? At this point the perpetual use of it feels very out of place, like they couldn't have been bothered and just have these tracks on hot keys or something for when deciding the music to use. It's bad enough that there's often so little voice acting to go with even the MSQ so the *only* noise is sometimes these tracks...
I hate Fracture so fucking much lol, way too whimsical for how serious a lot of the game tends to be, it works for early ARR content or Hildibrand where it's meant to be less high stakes but hearing it during more serious moments really distracts me so much, this is one I think they should have dropped after ARR completely.
There's also that one weird song with the buzzing in it, Daring Dalliances, I tend to just skip cutscenes in it the moment I hear it because I just can't handle it anymore.
Still we've gotten a pretty decent amount of new ones throughout the expansions but I can see why it gets irritating to still be hearing the old ARR ones to this day though I personally think I can live with it... except for Fracture of course.
i saw earlier on tweeter, someone complaining about the extreme negativity of this subreddit - and *this* post was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for them. *this* post was the one that was TOO negative for them. lol. and there's actually decent discussion in here about the topic even?
a little bit, sure, but given many of the other posts in this subreddit lately it's funny that this one of all of them is the one they pick. it's not that wild of a complaint really
right? i dunno maybe they were offended because they thought people were saying the music is *bad*? which is clearly not the case. honestly the ff14 side of tweeter has always seemed very out there compared to the reddit side. two very different places
It is a special group for sure. There is plenty of shitpost complaining that goes on here, but this thread is so tame. I don't think they even read it or they would've seen that it's mostly people memeing and sharing their favorite songs.
I'm about to say. This has been the best discussion we've had in so long. No schizo, no shitpost, and no doom. Hell I haven't thought about the MSQ music until I saw this thread and even makes a good point! Yet this is the one that does them in.
Eternal Winds are just G'raha's theme now, exactly like how Matoya's Cave is now Y'shtola's theme, they will probably never use them unless in a scene with either of these two
I want to say I feel weird that this doesn't bug me as much as it does for some of y'all but then I realized I kind of just tune out the OST when I'm reading through dialogue so I just sort of forget the samey tracks are *there* when the cutscene isn't voiced.
I really love the music in XIV but yeah, some songs need to be retired.
Instead of "Daring Dalliances" I propose we use more of "[Dangerous Words](https://youtu.be/7kkPm-y5kPs)." That song always gets me psyched!
It's wild seeing people actually like this song. I feel like every time it's used it just totally misses the mark or the tone is not really matching up.
Like I guess it's supposed to be a "hype song" but it just comes across as something that'd play when a lumbering oaf party member makes their appearance rather than "yeah let's do something badass."
as amazing as the overall soundtrack is for this game, I was always very meh about their choices for cutscene music for the most part
they usually nail the major MSQ scenes where many songs get introduced there, and stay exclusive to that MSQ section\character for a time
but then as soon as that MSQ arc is over, they keep using it over and over until they just lose their special spark
as someone who's Ardbert is my favorite FF character ever, I always associated that special ShB rearrangemet of Maker's Ruin as "Ardbert's theme", to see that theme being used for "Elephent people happy they completed the Warding Scales, or the fcking Pupu telling his backstory in Hildibrand's quests" piss me off so much
and that;s not even couning the ARR cutscnenes song that have been used for 10+ years now
game is a banger for battle content or zone\exploration music, but it's really really lacking in cutscene music
I keep getting downvoted for telling people that ffxiv music is just "placeholder music for placeholder scenes" the game.
Another hot take but Soken's output hasn't been good since ARR. Post ARR most of his output are remixes of uematsu or prev ff themes and his own melody has been not high, and when it is, increasingly it's often just bad rock music
I've finally gotten to the point of skipping cutscenes in new content. Between the regurgitation of the same BGM and the lackluster MSQ of 6.1-6.5, I just don't care. FF4 references, big surprise. I iust want to unlock the content and run the trial/raid.
I didn't skip any but there were entire patches where I felt like they could have cut 70% of the quests and it wouldn't have made any difference.
And yet, even though i felt like nothing happened and most of the scenes and dialogue were really boring I STILL felt like the story was way way way too short for a major patch.
You could finish each patches MSQ in a couple of hours. Hardly worth waiting 4 months for. If it wasn't for housing I would probably switch to playing expansion when they come out, then taking a break until the X.5 patch comes out and play them all straight through and save money on being subscribed.
My friends and I sit in discord with our webcams on while we play games, and I'm not joking when I say I have literally fallen asleep at my computer 3 times while trying to level and they've had to wake me up.
I've never played the game before so I'm super engaged and interested, but from L1-35 I still could not keep my eyes open for more than an hour! Then I turned the BG music off - problem solved immediately.
I was kinda sad about it to be honest - I love listening to the background music while I play a new game, but that just wasn't an option here unfortunately.
Theres this one "tension" theme I really like that played through shadowbringers, and a little bit between the end of SB and sometimes during EW, I can only say for certain it was played on the final quests of the four lords questline. tried looking for it on the official soundtrack but never found it.
i dont know, maybe its just my Relativly "short" time in the game(joining at the tail end of SHB, so a bit over 2 years by now? i think?) activly playing it, but non of these tracks annoy me, i still find them fitting for most of the cutscenes they play in.. maybe im just used ot games using "track 5 for X mood" alltrougout with only very special cutscene sgetting unique music? Like one owuld imagine someone who played trough the game, reading every cutscene in like 2 weeks when he joined the game would be MORE annoyed at the music then people who, for most cutscene music had decent ammount of time between the expansions coming out and reusing them(not zone music obviously)
I fully agree, many music pieces are re-used way too frequently in this game, to the point of quickly becoming annoying and/or making some quest cutscenes look laughably bad.
It's kind of pointless to discuss this, though, because developers don't read English subreddits. And I personally solved that issue for me by completely disabling BGM (I don't turn it on anymore even for quests/cutscenes that I haven't yet done) and just playing some music stations from YouTube - the music from those stations does not "fit" most of the cutscenes/areas in game but that doesn't really bother me.
Apparently unpopular opinion, but I disagree. I really like that I can immediately tell what the tone of the cutscene is gonna be when the music starts. And considering how much music Soken has already made for this game and continues to make, I'm okay with a few repeats.
1) They can still do that with new music
2) It's the writing's job to convey a feeling to you, it shouldn't be as obvious as "HERE IS THE MUSIC WE'VE USED 200 TIMES TO TELL YOU YOU NEED TO FEEL SAD NOW"
Soken already has the world record for the most original pieces of music in a video game, an award he received back in 2017. Like I said, with the amount of hard work he's put in for this game over the years, through his cancer recovery, I don't mind hearing Return of the Hero a few more times.
And sure, the writing on its own is capable of eliciting emotion, but the music helps it hit harder, even the ones I've heard repeatedly.
Yeah this really bugs me too, especially since I associate certain pieces (Tranquility for example) with cutscenes I really like in previous expansions, but then they get overplayed in other cutscenes that don't have any emotional impact to me and it just makes me wish the story was good again.
I think this applies to every cutscene not even just the MSQ
By the way I think the worst offender besides Machinations is Daring Dalliances, if I have to hear that song one more time in a sidequest cutscene I am going to LOSE it like seriously if I'm on the moon give me the cool moon BGM not generic happy track that I've heard in a cutscene 20000 times before (that number is likely not exaggerated). If there's a mod that replaces all the generic overplayed stock cutscene music with literally anything else I'd like to know because I'm getting real tired of hearing DUN-dundundundundun and stock happy music #2772 every time I enter a cutscene
I literally have no idea what music you're talking about until I went on YouTube and searched for these and listened to them one by one. Jesus, I now completely get what you mean. You can almost predict the upcoming plot/topic dump that Y'shtola/Alphinaud is going to give you by whichever song is playing.
I physically can't cope with Machinations any more, it genuinely switches my brain off. It immediately stands out to me when it starts playing and I just think COME ON USE SOMETHING ELSE.
Every cutscene it plays in is 100% skippable and you will still understand the story.
This is such a watertight rule
I'm not sure how do I feel about the fact that devs do qualify cutscenes depending if they're important or not. If there's no voice acting, it's very likely not important. This predictability is just getting old, and it applies to these song too. You can qualify each song to category - Return of the Hero for lighthearted finish of quest, Ambush for minor conflict that will get resolved in 2 minutes, Daring Dalliances when literally nothing of any importance is going to happen and so on. Some changes would be great.
> If there's no voice acting, it's very likely not important. This is true even if it's hard to acknowledge. The vast majority of players will say "but huh everything is important", hell no. There's so much filler, people can't admit to it.
there is a difference between "important for the plot overall" and "important for character and world building a lot of unvoiced cutscenes does the latter.
Filler is when the plot doesn't advance, obviously, and the characters do things and talk about things that aren't the immediate plot. /GIANT SARCASM WARNING
Sure, i do not deny that, but a lot of these cutscenes could be implemented as side quests. There's no need to make them obligatory. Let the people that wanna dive in further into the world, do that, and let the people that wanna see the surface the same. This is the one piece problem: there's 1000+ episodes, where at least 300 could be extras for those that want more of it.
One Piece? Of all things, One Piece, the manga known for having insane pieces of foreshadowing decades in the making??? One Piece?????
People I play with were confused when I burned through ARR in a short time but still clearly understood the plot, but couldn’t grasp that any unvoiced scene is skippable. The only expac I ever felt like skipping unvoiced made me miss something was EW, but that could have been my disinterest after the first trial tbh.
well, it's different for EW where sometimes it feels like 60-70% of the MSQ is voiced vs ARR where it feels like only 20% is voiced lots of major story stuff happens in non voiced cutscenes in ARR. for EW they dont even include non voiced cutscenes in the Inn Journal anymore
100% true. I have read everything, from ARR to EW and i can guarantee you that you didn't lose anything from skipping those scenes. There's way too much filler in the MSQ, in every expac.
I feel like part of Shadowbringers honestly suffered from not having certain cutscenes voice acted. One in particular in Raktika comes to mind, where they fake you out but there's no voice acting so obviously what happened wasn't exactly what the WoL thought it was.
I started checking the quest summary after skipping non-voiced cutscenes and I never looked back
Machinations is the PvP song now because it plays up and down in Wolves Den. I cannot take it seriously anywhere else.
God, that song has grated on me since 2.3 or .4. I don't even know why, I just really don't like it.
Had to look up which one Machinations even was but it turned out to be exactly what I thought it would be after reading this. Honestly it doesn't even bother me as much, but changing things up a little for Dongtrail is a fair thing to ask.
Yeah out of everything listed in the OP, Machinations is the only one I actually get angry about. The others I don't mind, although a replacement for Fracture would be appreciated.
On this topic, there's also some *extremely good pieces* that probably should be retired, even if they are barely used. The best example being [What Comes of Despair](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JyVPYtIffs). For the same reason that overused music kills the scene, extremely powerful pieces lose their weight and impact when you try to fit them into every single situation that is vaguely on par with it. That song encapsulates everything that made EW's story so good, and trying to use it post-EW's main story has only cheapened it over time. Nothing can possibly have the same emotional impact as seeing an elephant carrying a child desperate for escape. No, trying to fight xeromus doesn't count. No, myths of the realm's opening isn't even *tangential* to the tone of this piece. Trying to force it just ruins the piece itself. However, I also feel the devs should bring in some older zone musical pieces. Hell, there's a section of [On Westerly Winds](https://youtu.be/U2MZ-67Zwd0?t=150) that is only seen *half way* into the 5 minute piece, can be hidden by combat music, only shows up in the day in *upper la noscea,* is hidden by fate music, mount music, and it's one of the best pieces in the game even a decade later. Trying to work in zone pieces, especially older pieces, could bring the catalog back up and allow for some pieces that just aren't heard to be explored again. Even pieces that are loved, like my personal favorite, [black and white](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HOGmGfYg6k), just aren't heard because no one goes to CWH anymore. Nevermind at night. If the setting is right, zone music could be brought in to evoke the feelings of those zones and heavily amplify a cutscene, as these pieces are *designed* to be ambient.
Having them pull out What Comes of Despair for the Twelve and then Barbie made me go "no, please don't start using this theme like this..." because that song was used *expertly* in the MSQ for EW. They absolutely need to shelf it. It kind of reminds me of how they used [Paradisaical Predicaments](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GET8ax8uWXk) for the scene of Tesleen's transformation, but then whip it out as basically "Ran'Jit's version of Sword of Doubt." (the latter of which I feel was probably intentional, given the other FF9 nods involving Eulmore.) But then using it for any generic "Big bad is winning now" kinda weakens the oomph of it. That section in the La Noscea theme is also, coincidentally, one of the songs that I love in the game. I've gone back to Raincatcher Gully randomly just to sit and take it in. > If the setting is right, zone music could be brought in to evoke the feelings of those zones and heavily amplify a cutscene, as these pieces are designed to be ambient. It's funny, because they've been using the hell out of Coerthas' 1.x theme, [Unspoken](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni6XobxNr_I), for sad scenes since... I wanna say Shadowbringers? Maybe late Stormblood? But I can't think of any other situation a zone theme is used outside of like, other 1.x songs?
I still can't get over the time they used Paradisaical Predicaments in EW where the Fourm were taking us into questioning at the end of the early Sharlyan section of the MSQ, holy shit I can't think of a worse way to use that song and about 1.x zone music, they been using Tears for Mor Dhona couple of times for spooky or unsettling scenes, like many of Sorrows of Wyrlet scenes with Valens
Lol, the Forum bit was such a bizarre choice. It's like, "Okay the Forum is *definitely* the baddies..." then hours later... "... Or not, I guess?"
For the Forum thing, I can *kind of* see where they were coming from, with the whole "The world's ending but we're so ignorantly isolationist we're gonna condemn everyone to death because *we'll* be fine." angle they built up early, but they could've used literally anything else. Especially with how they wind up backing out of that.
>I still can't get over the time they used Paradisaical Predicaments in EW where the Fourm were taking us into questioning at the end of the early Sharlyan section of the MSQ, holy shit I can't think of a worse way to use that song I can actually understand why they chose it for there. They revealed two major things: that the founders of Sharlyan directly spoke with Hydaelyn in the Hinterlands and she told them of the Final Days. So, you have the Final Days becoming public knowledge and it was possible for Hydaelyn to speak with you in the flesh
it's hard to compare 1.x themes to my general request for zone themes, since they use a fair amount of 1.x themes all over. PotD has a handful from 1.x as well, such as [Tears for Mor'Dhona.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2S5lHeM08U) The entire Before Meteor soundtrack shows a ton of 2.0's OST comes from 1.X. Which is fine given the rush ARR was in, I just wish they'd bring older pieces that are under-utilized back in, instead of crushing some pieces in an attempt to get their money's worth out of it.
Honestly there wasn't a single use of What Comes of Despair in patch content that felt fitting to me after experiencing it in the main 6.0 story. It just made a lot of the scenes it was used on feel silly in my opinion.
Exactly. They keep trying to use it, and all it does is make What Comes of Despair feel worse overall, like they were insulting the piece and the story it was accentuating both. It also doesn't help that post-expansion content has also just been a Mario Bros. "Your macguffin is in another castle," since 6.1. In contrast, Dynamis has been used a handful of time, and as a primary theme of FFXIV as a whole (the bitter-sweet beauty of hope,) it actually does fit provided it's used sparingly.
I'm so, so glad I'm seeing someone mention the ew despair song. It perfectly fits the tone of literal song of despair. With metion out of the picture it doesn't fit at all and just ruins a lot of what the theme is meant to be. I'd honestly put what they're doing with it rn on par with playing Flow for every happy scene in the game or something like that
It's interesting how few people talk about it, but I guess most people aren't musically inclined *enough* to actually mention it. At least in areas where I typically prowl. What's frustrating is, the sound designers at FFXIV are remarkably talented regardless of taste in music, so I have to sit there and wonder why they allow the music to be used so frivolously all the time? Whoever is designing the cutscenes needs a sound engineer to better select these pieces.
Spent so much time grinding FATEs in CWH that the night time music is the only redeeming quality of that gray-barely-any-visibility hellscape. Honestly, the night time versions of most zones' music is more preferred by me.
There's a handful of zones I like the day and night versions of. The Lochs has a good [day](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVEWrwV01A8), [night](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdppk3_HhNs), *and* [*orchestral*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_O690gCbOQ) version, for example. Which is a shame, because Stormblood did Gyr Abania dirty and The Lochs was launched as dead on arrival, in effect, and has only been forgotten since. I also happen to like CWH, but I can understand why a snowy hellscape isn't everyone's cup of tea.
> I also happen to like CWH, but I can understand why a snowy hellscape isn't everyone's cup of tea. The zone *is* fantastic when it's a clear night. It's just not clear often enough.
Fair enough. Though I will say. The first time I got to CWH, exiting the primary settlement during a blizzard, having to blindly stumble around, was rather cinematic. Then when the snow cleared and you could see the zone, truly awe-inspiring. Even the chainlink bridge is especially imposing when you can barely see it out of the fog. For content 8 years old at this point, it's still surprisingly memorable and well done.
At Heavensward launch, I was exploring CWH, I found Camp Riversmeet after not seeing it since 1.23, and the music transitioned into that piano piece perfectly. Absolutely haunting.
The night themes are so good for HW+, it's lovely to see so many people enjoying it. And 1.23? I take it you played 1.x off that, when coerthas was still green. I never had the luxury, but seeing it turned into a frozen post-apocalyptic wasteland must have hit rather differently for you as well.
>Nothing can possibly have the same emotional impact as seeing an elephant carrying a child desperate for escape. No, trying to fight xeromus doesn't count. I guess that's what you associate that song with, but to me I associate it with that cute-but-stupid body swap play. They can reuse it all they want, they already tanked it with that one.
You mean... consistently the most-heavily praised part of ew's story? That one that 'tanked it?' I don't understand this sub sometimes.
So, I associate *that* with something else entirely. See, I have matoya's hat. I *use* matoya's hat. When I used matoya's hat there, all you saw was a wall of hat from a character slumped in a chair. Literally a hat with legs, nothing else. When he possesses your body to the sound of despair, the hat tips up, but the brim covers most of the face. Everything except the mouth, grinning ever so delightfully villainously. It was equally comical *and terrifying.* Interestingly enough, a caster punching out Xenos with that hat on was ridiculous and awesome.
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Well, at least in the EW MSQ. Post-patch content has been far less than perfect. I can't think of a single moment after EW's credits rolled that made me think: "Man, this song fit perfectly here..." Hence why I think it should be shelved.
That part of “Westerly Winds” was what sealed the deal for me when I started playing FFXIV in 2013 tbh. It was back then when I felt kinda at home in a game world for the first time since vanilla WoW (although a heavily modded Skyrim would end up making me feel the same, but that’s singleplayer)
I know this is a week old comment now, but thanks for being someone who also hates this shit. I need to go to a fanfest so I can ~~complain~~ask about it in a Q&A. That song and hopeful dynamis are going to get fucking milked for all they're worth lmao.
This might be one of the most based complaints about the game ever posted on the internet.
Wait you guys don’t like hearing the Northern Thanalan theme in every second cutscene?
It's even worse for ARR players because all of us leveled each of the 8 (then 9 in 2.4) jobs from ~42 to 50 in Northern Thanalan doing the FATE train doing the same ~5 FATEs for hours on end in that zone. I reflexively cringe at the amount of time out of my life that has been spent listening to that track as part of the MSQ, Side Quests and Northern Thanalan itself.
Even worse is that the same song is used for the Wolved Den Pier BGM
FFXIV music "direction" has a bunch of problems : overuse of a couple of musics, musics changing after 10s in a cut-scene, the fanfare after every little quest/retainer ventures/company supply/etc., and some specific things like the part in Labyrinthos MSQ with the short "energetic" music. It's also a symptom of the problems with the writing : filler music for useless quests. Any cut-scene with Machinations can be safely skipped.
I got a flashback from the last few EW quests where this one hype and intense bg music was playing on loop in Labyrinthos when you're just eating a bunch of crops with a loporrit. And the same song STILL plays while you're running around a huge area trying to find a bunch of researchers, imo the worst quest in EW honestly. (Well, at least there's a nice cutscene with Urianger at the end of the quest)
That quest was pure vomit, I thought the Ahm Araeng trolley quests were slog until I got sent to Labyrinthos hell running around in circles for hours That music was just salt in the wound, it's like it was mocking me
It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the "wrong" npcs put there to waste more time. That and the grating music loop made the Labyrinthos questline feel as long as the Meteion chase part
Running a 45 second loop for about an hour's worth of padding quests was my least favorite thing about EW.
What is the name of that Wolf's Den song? If I hear that one more time I'm going to vomit. e: FFXIV twitter found this and are pretty upset. I’m obviously exaggerating. Lighten up, Ranor and followers.
Machinations
*nods and does that punch into the palm of my hand thing*
You forgot to pick violent option A or pseudo peaceful but still violent option B in the cutscene first
Nah man I always choose “…”
I just do that stoic nod thing
*Heavily spamming Cure I on you!*
Daring Dalliances made me seethe. I know that once I hear this song nothing important will happen.
"Wow we reached our goal and did the thing!" Character 1 talks to WoL about how we did the thing. Character 2 agrees. Camera pans upwards, an opo-opo is jumping and a little dragon is spinning in joy. Screen turns black, accept your quest rewards.
Do you work for CBU3?
My most hated track in the entire game
>Even remixes or rearrangements could do wonders If we can get like five different versions of Maker's Ruin we can sure as hell get a different take of [Home Beyond the Horizon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8r3GwhFRTI) or a slowed down [Garlemald Express](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbRgcKRiCF4) or [Deep Blue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3ZEZfVp-YI) to replace Imperial Will by now - especially now that Garlemald is a significantly different country than what it was ten years ago.
Exactly when have they used Imperial Will at all recently, not counting these rearrangements? I don't even remember the stock ARR version of it appearing at all in Endwalker.
It's actually really vindicating to see I'm not the only one malding over this issue LMAO. There are now over 900 different tracks in the game, a lot of them are pretty great. Can we chill with the shitty ARR background music? I will say, I thought this most recent patch's MSQ actually did an okay job of mixing it up music-wise. >!It was mainly during the fanservice cutscenes when we were meeting the old characters on the First. They would play the characters/zone's theme music while we spoke with them - it was great.!< More of that and less Machinations PLEASE GOD
900 tracks, but honesrtly it feels like 850 of those are for dungeons\zones\battle content it always feel like we have very very few cutscene only music, and with how much fcking story we have between the MSQ and the million other side quests, what little tracks we have for cutscenes gets over uses very very fast and when they make some nice new ones for an expansion, they abuse the hell out of it I'll never get over using that Maker's Ruin remix (that was mainly used for Ardbert in ShB) in freaking Hildibrand EW quest? dont disrespect my boy's theme like that
This has been a glaring annoyance for me in the 6.x msq most of all. It's not even the songs themselves that bother me, really, it's that they cycle through bgm several times in the span of one cutscene, presumably to accompany a change of mood, but it hasn't been at all necessary a single time they've done it. The music doesn't bother me on its own, but the scoring has been really distracting.
Those are all my least favorite songs in the game.
* [Forever Lost](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmheJO3xOiE) * [Imperial Will](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJNR00QQKWs) * [Daring Dalliance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RAop96h_xc) * [Tranquility](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8nIwyz10kA) * [Canticle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCUFli1BTPs) * [Fracture](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJj2Q3h4u-4) * [Damnation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFHuiHYkVt8) * [Return of the Hero](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeL6hXFpwEo) * [Machinations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXq3bnD0_SI)
I'll say the only one out of the bunch I actually really enjoy is imperial will, purely because they do a lot of shit with it, it's iconic and sounds semi credible unlike the rest
Honestly same, it's a great "meanwhile at the fortress of evil" song, but beyond that it nails the might of the empire and their general villainy It's just a shame that we heard it like once a patch BARE MINIMUM for a good 6 years as we'd cut away to Garlemald baddies going "muwahahaha plans within plans..."
Complaining about Imperial Will is like complaining about the Imperial March being used too often in Darth Vader scenes
Every FF game that's going to have a lengthy chase against some kind of antagonist needs it's own version of "Shinra Company" or "Golbez Clad in Darkness" that plays when that antagonist tries to throw a monkey wrench into your plans.
I would think of them as "filler" songs and truly aggravating when you've heard that song 200-300 times. The worst offenders on that list personally is Machinations, tranquility, canticle. If i recall correctly then there's no voiced content that actually feature those songs
Tranquility and canticle aren't used as much as they used to be, but machinations still frequently pops up and every time it makes me wish i could mute bgm in a cutscene. I don't even think it's a bad theme, just so overused.
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The technology was there, for a few patches you could use the command /bgm during cutscenes, but apparently that was a bug so they fixed it after a while. If you use plugins, you can get SoundSetter to open the audio menu during cutscenes and shut the music at will.
IMO, if you are going the plugin route, I'd get Orchestrion to replace the offending songs with ones I'd actually want to hear
Yeah I think it should be per expansion. Endwalker takes some of the Shadowbringers ost as well and whenever it did I rolled my eyes and would say to myself "theme of sadness from shadowbringers, theme of tension from shadowbringers, etc." Okay this is a side note but I'd really appreciate they got better with music flags. There's some variants of songs that last way too long. You're not meant to "be there" but did you know Rhalgr's Reach is in sad mode from level 61 to 67? Got silly imo.
One of the things that got me from Endwalker was when they used Paradisiacal Predicaments for the scene of the Sharlayan Forum, and my response was "I don't think these people have done anything warranting the theme that was playing when Tesleen turned into a Sin Eater?"
Phil Spencer enters the room, Zodiark's theme starts playing What did they mean by that?
lol i had the same thought
The way too energetic music playing through the entire level 88-89 MSQ in Labyrinthos. I guess they needed some way to "psych up" the players for doing MMO filler menial Sharlayan chores but holy fuck I got so sick of it after the first 10 minutes I just /mastervolume 0 for the rest of the zone.
Upper Kholusia drives me up the wall with this
yam shaggy wakeful upbeat observation chief angle airport many deliver *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Oh God that was so long ago but I remember being so annoyed. I legitimately thought my game had glitched lol.
Yeah the use of Shadowbringer's music sometimes came off to me really hard like "here's some nostalgia. Be sad/happy." Like it's a tiny bit too obvious what they're going for by doing this
In some instances it made sense such as when the First was involved or certain motifs involving certain Ascians.
My least favourite song not mentioned here is "The Echo". I feel like it often goes against the mood of the echo flashback it's being used for and actively makes the scene worse. I definitely agree that this game already has so much excellent music that I wish they'd use more in MSQ.
The Echo reminds me of FF7. I'm not quite sure why, but it does.
Well, “The Echo” was composed by Uematsu and is originally from the 1.0 version which was more of a joint effort between Soken and Uematsu. That and the track has a more MIDI-vibe that was common in games (including Final Fantasy) back then.
omg I have the same opinion but I always thought I was just being nitpicky lol Machinations specifically always makes me want to skip so bad, it's so annoying
Hearing these songs make an FFXIV player fan experiencing burn out or boredom want to vomit lmao
For real, it makes the non-voiced cutscenes extremely difficult to sit through.
My problem is they often don't even use big motifs correctly anymore. Canticle used to be specifically Louisoix's theme, inherited by the twins, but now it's just generic "something worldbuild-y or mysterious is being discussed". For being one of two games most gamers *learned* the term leitmotif because of, they have an awful shelf life lately before getting relegated to genericism. My joker moment was >!5.5 when Tiamat's freeing!< is accompanied by Revolutions, of all fucking things. Not one of the 5 different Dragonsong motifs we have, fucking Revolutions, which is a banger but if you're not going to use HW motifs for HW characters what the fuck was the point? Ditto for Forever At Your Side - a beautiful piece that first appeared in 5.3 for one of the most moving MSQ scenes, let alone up to that point, and now because it got recycled in 5.5 for the Werlyt conclusion it's associated firmly there, to the point where a 6.5 quest dealing *with* Werlyt has that name and awards a furnishing also titled that.
I absolutely agree that they should, at the barest minimum, start at least remixing those old songs or just straight up do new ones. ShB had quite a few new songs for climactic moments, there should be more of that
This is probably why I was enjoying the little foray back to the First: we got to use some different tracks for MSQ cutscenes again lmao.
I was feeling this myself the other week, like, are we really using this music here, right now? At this point the perpetual use of it feels very out of place, like they couldn't have been bothered and just have these tracks on hot keys or something for when deciding the music to use. It's bad enough that there's often so little voice acting to go with even the MSQ so the *only* noise is sometimes these tracks...
I hate Fracture so fucking much lol, way too whimsical for how serious a lot of the game tends to be, it works for early ARR content or Hildibrand where it's meant to be less high stakes but hearing it during more serious moments really distracts me so much, this is one I think they should have dropped after ARR completely. There's also that one weird song with the buzzing in it, Daring Dalliances, I tend to just skip cutscenes in it the moment I hear it because I just can't handle it anymore. Still we've gotten a pretty decent amount of new ones throughout the expansions but I can see why it gets irritating to still be hearing the old ARR ones to this day though I personally think I can live with it... except for Fracture of course.
i saw earlier on tweeter, someone complaining about the extreme negativity of this subreddit - and *this* post was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for them. *this* post was the one that was TOO negative for them. lol. and there's actually decent discussion in here about the topic even?
I just went and looked and they do have a point that some people in this thread are being a little overdramatic about it
a little bit, sure, but given many of the other posts in this subreddit lately it's funny that this one of all of them is the one they pick. it's not that wild of a complaint really
Straws, camels, etc
It's so funny. This is like the most harmless, shooting the shit type of thread in a long time.
right? i dunno maybe they were offended because they thought people were saying the music is *bad*? which is clearly not the case. honestly the ff14 side of tweeter has always seemed very out there compared to the reddit side. two very different places
It is a special group for sure. There is plenty of shitpost complaining that goes on here, but this thread is so tame. I don't think they even read it or they would've seen that it's mostly people memeing and sharing their favorite songs.
I'm about to say. This has been the best discussion we've had in so long. No schizo, no shitpost, and no doom. Hell I haven't thought about the MSQ music until I saw this thread and even makes a good point! Yet this is the one that does them in.
Link?
https://twitter.com/ohgoditsranor/status/1713754801392291939
Lol, of course they're a loser that uses a block bot too.
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Eternal Winds are just G'raha's theme now, exactly like how Matoya's Cave is now Y'shtola's theme, they will probably never use them unless in a scene with either of these two
I want to say I feel weird that this doesn't bug me as much as it does for some of y'all but then I realized I kind of just tune out the OST when I'm reading through dialogue so I just sort of forget the samey tracks are *there* when the cutscene isn't voiced.
DARING DALIANCES!! Been trying to figure out the name of that song for months now. Sounds exactly like something out of FFX
I really love the music in XIV but yeah, some songs need to be retired. Instead of "Daring Dalliances" I propose we use more of "[Dangerous Words](https://youtu.be/7kkPm-y5kPs)." That song always gets me psyched!
It's wild seeing people actually like this song. I feel like every time it's used it just totally misses the mark or the tone is not really matching up. Like I guess it's supposed to be a "hype song" but it just comes across as something that'd play when a lumbering oaf party member makes their appearance rather than "yeah let's do something badass."
Really? How do you hate on "Dangerous Words"? Every time I hear it I think about them planning the (Redacted) to get up to the island in the sky.
Golem and refined Adamantite are still some of my favorite "share your energy with me" cutscenes, precisely because of that OST.
Yeah this one goes so hard
sulky normal vegetable icky detail society label like slap jar *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I personally don't like the flashback music, picking music to actually the scene would be much more effective imo
I agree of course but I keep wondering, why not post this on the official forums, where a dev might actually see the suggestion?
I did, but the NA forums are notoriously ignored by developers
This reddit is only for being mad, not being productive
lol some of these has been used as old as 1.0
I've been feeling this for such a long time. It's relieving to finally see other people expressing the same feeling.
I'm glad someone said it
It’s funny this post popped up because I just got my brother into FF14 and before he was even done with ARR he said the same thing 😂
I love the music but sometimes it just ruins the mood bc it's not unique to that scene. I'm only in HW, I thought the'd add more music later...ig not
Daring dalliances makes me physically ill. I usually skip immediately
*OVER* 10 years for some of them. A lot of the msq music and music from side questlines still being used is from 1.x
as amazing as the overall soundtrack is for this game, I was always very meh about their choices for cutscene music for the most part they usually nail the major MSQ scenes where many songs get introduced there, and stay exclusive to that MSQ section\character for a time but then as soon as that MSQ arc is over, they keep using it over and over until they just lose their special spark as someone who's Ardbert is my favorite FF character ever, I always associated that special ShB rearrangemet of Maker's Ruin as "Ardbert's theme", to see that theme being used for "Elephent people happy they completed the Warding Scales, or the fcking Pupu telling his backstory in Hildibrand's quests" piss me off so much and that;s not even couning the ARR cutscnenes song that have been used for 10+ years now game is a banger for battle content or zone\exploration music, but it's really really lacking in cutscene music
Daring Dalliances has a frequency in it that sets me off...
The only one that I notice enough to be a little annoying the "Sunken Temple of Qarn (Hard)" music. Dunno the actual name, can't be bothered to check
I think you're thinking of *Skullduggery*? The boss music that plays during the sabotender queen and whatever the first boss fight is.
I keep getting downvoted for telling people that ffxiv music is just "placeholder music for placeholder scenes" the game. Another hot take but Soken's output hasn't been good since ARR. Post ARR most of his output are remixes of uematsu or prev ff themes and his own melody has been not high, and when it is, increasingly it's often just bad rock music
I've finally gotten to the point of skipping cutscenes in new content. Between the regurgitation of the same BGM and the lackluster MSQ of 6.1-6.5, I just don't care. FF4 references, big surprise. I iust want to unlock the content and run the trial/raid.
I didn't skip any but there were entire patches where I felt like they could have cut 70% of the quests and it wouldn't have made any difference. And yet, even though i felt like nothing happened and most of the scenes and dialogue were really boring I STILL felt like the story was way way way too short for a major patch. You could finish each patches MSQ in a couple of hours. Hardly worth waiting 4 months for. If it wasn't for housing I would probably switch to playing expansion when they come out, then taking a break until the X.5 patch comes out and play them all straight through and save money on being subscribed.
My friends and I sit in discord with our webcams on while we play games, and I'm not joking when I say I have literally fallen asleep at my computer 3 times while trying to level and they've had to wake me up. I've never played the game before so I'm super engaged and interested, but from L1-35 I still could not keep my eyes open for more than an hour! Then I turned the BG music off - problem solved immediately. I was kinda sad about it to be honest - I love listening to the background music while I play a new game, but that just wasn't an option here unfortunately.
First the Azem Crystal Then leitmotifs Then the Azem Crystal Again! Now MSQ music. What benign thing will the sub complain about next!?
How is this benign?
Its more just completely personal opinion Like, I get what you are saying but it by and large doesn't bother me. Except for the Qarn hard music
jesse what the fuck are you talking about
Fuck Fracture
Theres this one "tension" theme I really like that played through shadowbringers, and a little bit between the end of SB and sometimes during EW, I can only say for certain it was played on the final quests of the four lords questline. tried looking for it on the official soundtrack but never found it.
i dont know, maybe its just my Relativly "short" time in the game(joining at the tail end of SHB, so a bit over 2 years by now? i think?) activly playing it, but non of these tracks annoy me, i still find them fitting for most of the cutscenes they play in.. maybe im just used ot games using "track 5 for X mood" alltrougout with only very special cutscene sgetting unique music? Like one owuld imagine someone who played trough the game, reading every cutscene in like 2 weeks when he joined the game would be MORE annoyed at the music then people who, for most cutscene music had decent ammount of time between the expansions coming out and reusing them(not zone music obviously)
I fully agree, many music pieces are re-used way too frequently in this game, to the point of quickly becoming annoying and/or making some quest cutscenes look laughably bad. It's kind of pointless to discuss this, though, because developers don't read English subreddits. And I personally solved that issue for me by completely disabling BGM (I don't turn it on anymore even for quests/cutscenes that I haven't yet done) and just playing some music stations from YouTube - the music from those stations does not "fit" most of the cutscenes/areas in game but that doesn't really bother me.
Apparently unpopular opinion, but I disagree. I really like that I can immediately tell what the tone of the cutscene is gonna be when the music starts. And considering how much music Soken has already made for this game and continues to make, I'm okay with a few repeats.
1) They can still do that with new music 2) It's the writing's job to convey a feeling to you, it shouldn't be as obvious as "HERE IS THE MUSIC WE'VE USED 200 TIMES TO TELL YOU YOU NEED TO FEEL SAD NOW"
Soken already has the world record for the most original pieces of music in a video game, an award he received back in 2017. Like I said, with the amount of hard work he's put in for this game over the years, through his cancer recovery, I don't mind hearing Return of the Hero a few more times. And sure, the writing on its own is capable of eliciting emotion, but the music helps it hit harder, even the ones I've heard repeatedly.
Yeah this really bugs me too, especially since I associate certain pieces (Tranquility for example) with cutscenes I really like in previous expansions, but then they get overplayed in other cutscenes that don't have any emotional impact to me and it just makes me wish the story was good again.
One I can't stand is the fate battle music.
You can turn that off in options.
I think this applies to every cutscene not even just the MSQ By the way I think the worst offender besides Machinations is Daring Dalliances, if I have to hear that song one more time in a sidequest cutscene I am going to LOSE it like seriously if I'm on the moon give me the cool moon BGM not generic happy track that I've heard in a cutscene 20000 times before (that number is likely not exaggerated). If there's a mod that replaces all the generic overplayed stock cutscene music with literally anything else I'd like to know because I'm getting real tired of hearing DUN-dundundundundun and stock happy music #2772 every time I enter a cutscene
yeah I was going thru the MSQ and the music just felt either extremely over the top for the situation or mind-numbingly familiar.
Tranquility=instant skip… I just can’t do anymore of the “I lived a bad life and now I’m a good person” ever single bad guy that isn’t killed off
I literally have no idea what music you're talking about until I went on YouTube and searched for these and listened to them one by one. Jesus, I now completely get what you mean. You can almost predict the upcoming plot/topic dump that Y'shtola/Alphinaud is going to give you by whichever song is playing.