Perform: what are your initial thoughts?

The fact we can't make macros for this is daunting enough. Even if we could make macros, 15 lines is not enough. SE, please?

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Originally Posted by SidewinderM86

Honestly I'd have just preferred hunting down new song roles that were specifically for the lute of current FFXIV songs. Click a thing, watch the bard strut his stuff. I love music and all, and I love the game. I Don't want the music to become a game.

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I'm with you on that. I absolutely loooved music making/playing in Archeage (MML style). It was fun to get together with friends to play multi-part songs, or play some songs while you're roaming the lands on your donkey.

GW2/XIV can be fun, I'm just partial to the other style. :X

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Originally Posted by Sigiria

Then you'll be disappointed, no playing during an instance.

I guess to avoid people spending more time playing music than participating, but it's still sad :(

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You can't play in a cross-world party either. But, I wonder if the compromise could be to allow you to play after "Duty complete" and you've beaten the final boss. Then, allow it. Right now, it seems all a bit too limiting. Are you allowed to use it in non-crossrealm parties outside of duty?

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Originally Posted by Kahnom

No in-game Metronome...

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Given the latency, THAT could be hilarious. :D

BTW: if your keyboard is macro capable, it's fairly easy (albeit time consuming) to write a macro for it once you have bound the 37 notes. I tried a simple C-maj scale with Razer synapse and it worked w/o any problems.

Not having macros is fine, but there really should have been some kind of UI element for Performance. Making us use a hotbar workaround involving two other classes is haphazard and lazy for what was touted as one of the two main aspects of this patch.

A welcome fix (for me at least) would be a "Perform" action which when activated would change your hotbars to the notes, and back again when deactivated. This would save the whole workaround headache that we currently have.

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Originally Posted by Dustytome

Maybe have performance mode that can only be done out of combat in open world areas that also brings up a UI with notes/instrument selection/music sheet actions?

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This sounds like it would be perfect.

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Originally Posted by Awha

Do you think a MIDI Keyboard would work if someone was tech savy enough or not really?
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I recall seeing a reddit post earlier about how to get a midi keyboard to work with bardic performances.

I like it, but it's not perfect. It's not a failure by any means but it could use improvements.

I think it should have its own "macro" system or I guess a music maker interface but something more user-friendly than typing codes, although that can be an alternative for people who prefer that and also having a way to share and copy-paste music.
It should have things like setting delays between each note and also the duration of holding a note but that is something only possible on instruments like a violin or flute and not a harp.

It could use its own hotbar mode like people have been suggesting.

It ate up a good chunk of time while I was waiting for a couple roulettes earlier, but my coordination with this many actions isn't very good. I'd like to be able to macro (or a music-sheet interface with better timing than macros would be even better) songs together. Maybe have performance mode that can only be done out of combat in open world areas that also brings up a UI with notes/instrument selection/music sheet actions?

Loving the ability to play music in-game. To really make this amazing is to have a separate "mode" for Perform which uses it's own hotbar and keybindings.

P.S. Oh, and also the ability to play in dungeons. Muh immersion.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

Given the latency, THAT could be hilarious. :D

BTW: if your keyboard is macro capable, it's fairly easy (albeit time consuming) to write a macro for it once you have bound the 37 notes. I tried a simple C-maj scale with Razer synapse and it worked w/o any problems.

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Ps4 here and Nope,I don’t have a keyboard and don’t plan to use any macro.Do everything manually could prove more challenge and more rewarding/satisfying.

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Originally Posted by Joe777

Also there are 37 buttons, which is quite an odd number. The way I see it, the best thing to do is slot them temporarily as need be for specific compositions.

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There's 37 because that gives exactly 3 full octaves including both the top and bottom octave.

I have a macro that shows/hides some blank hotbars and have them aligned how a piano's keys are. I click on the "Performance" macro to bring up the virtual keyboard, and on any of the other macros to hide it again. It will also automatically hide if I switch jobs. Admittedly, I'm only able do this because I use the 7-10 non-shared hotbars solely as a database of sorts for switching between preset hotbars in a menu-style system to save screen space and my Bard's 7-10 were empty.
https://i.imgur.com/QgvXqGQ.png?1
https://i.imgur.com/9211Yny.png?1

What I do want is a way to /micon the note icons so that I can set it as my "Performance" macro icon.

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Originally Posted by Zetsumei_Tsunarashi

They intentionally made it so you can't use macros with the perform actions because they want people to actually develop their skill as an in game musician instead of just copy / pasting macros from the internet.

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Macros aren't just for copying though, they are also for creating your own things. I have no musical background whatsoever so I don't remember what each note sounds like. It makes creating songs really difficult when most of my effort goes into finding a key that doesn't clash with the previous one. If I wanted to learn music properly I would buy a real instrument and get lessons, not mess with a game system with horrendous timing and combat job keybinds.

If there was a way to save my melodies and have them played without mistakes, I would enjoy and use this feature. It doesn't have to be our current macro system. Special hotbars with a "play all notes" button would work fine. Then I could place the notes on the bars and play the whole thing in rhythm.

I just wish we could "save" notes in any way and after making a song, to be able to see the bard playing it again with only one click!

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Originally Posted by Labrini

I just wish we could "save" notes in any way and after making a song, to be able to see the bard playing it again with only one click!

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Like a macro?

Yoshida did not want this so they made it so we can not do it, atleast not legally.

I've started using my Shared Macro tab space for putting down "sheet music", so to speak, in the macro table for ease of reading a piece I might want to practice - but in all honesty, without a dedicated UI for the keys and the ability to macro in any capacity so the music can be replayed easily and without error on my part... I don't really see myself using this system much. Maybe to waste time with on the odd days I queue endgame stuff up as my BRD, but never much beyond that.

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Originally Posted by Reinha

Macros aren't just for copying though, they are also for creating your own things. I have no musical background whatsoever so I don't remember what each note sounds like. It makes creating songs really difficult when most of my effort goes into finding a key that doesn't clash with the previous one. If I wanted to learn music properly I would buy a real instrument and get lessons, not mess with a game system with horrendous timing and combat job keybinds.

If there was a way to save my melodies and have them played without mistakes, I would enjoy and use this feature. It doesn't have to be our current macro system. Special hotbars with a "play all notes" button would work fine. Then I could place the notes on the bars and play the whole thing in rhythm.

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This quote pretty much sums up my opinion. I want to enjoy the Perform action - they obviously did put a fair bit of work into it, to give us such a wide range of notes. But with how it is now, I'd just be better off buying a real instrument and learning to play that.

I can’t even play hot cross buns on a recorder let alone play any actual music as a bard. So while this is of no use to me, I hope people who do play music and who understand notes enjoy it. For those of us who can’t play music, it would have been nice to have the bard auto play safe music like the music player in our houses.

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Originally Posted by Hyperia

I can’t even play hot cross buns on a recorder let alone play any actual music as a bard. So while this is of no use to me, I hope people who do play music and who understand notes enjoy it. For those of us who can’t play music, it would have been nice to have the bard auto play safe music like the music player in our houses.

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Even a small number of tunes would be nice. It's going to definitely reduce the number of people using the feature. Most of us are not musical... although when i get some time I'll play with it a bit.

My only major gripe (as someone who does play an instrument) is that the way the system is designed utilizing skills in this manner... You can't play chords. Single note is fine and all for simple pieces, but the only way to make chords with the system is to record a song multiple times utilizing each note in the chord at its position in the composition (with millisecond precision if you want it to be seamless) and then layer those tracks together in a video/sound editor.

It's not a system breaking thing and you can still make music with it, it's just a little disappointing. I understand the technical issues involved, but I'd still love to have some chords available to me.

My thoughts?

Well why don't we have an option to mute all those sounds??

I logged in yesterday after a very long tiresome day... it gave me a headache, I swear I never saw so many bards even though my server is a ghosttown, seems like everybody logged in just to play music, everybody was just standing there and no matter where I ran to, loads of people just playing weird tones trough each other ... I teleported to my house.

Seems I'll be avoiding people/town for another month.

I do recall that when they first revealed this system in a Live Letter, they said they're going to start small with single notes only, then add more instruments and chords etc. So I'm looking forward to it.

I just hope that they at least do something about the local delay and UI experience.

Note that I said local delay because some people in the thread don't understand what it's about. The idea is to have the client software immeidately play the note without waiting for server acknowledgement. This helps tremendously for people who have played instruments before but aren't necessarily real musicians who can probably easily adjust to such delays.

If I press a key, the note sounds as I press it. That's how instruments work, and it's a very important part of the experience, similar to how professional drawing tablets at the very least will track pen tips without lag, and tablets that show tracking lag are basically all classified as amateur/entry-level products by today.

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Originally Posted by Fhaerron

seems like everybody logged in just to play music, everybody was just standing there and no matter where I ran to, loads of people just playing weird tones trough each other

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Another difference between JP and non-JP data centers I guess. On my server (Zeromus) there are rarely people playing just randomly everywhere. The market, the aetheryte in Gridania were all just business as usual with no BRDs playing. People practise at home. At least when I was logged in it was like that.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

Another difference between JP and non-JP data centers I guess.

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Balmung wasn't horrible, at least where I hang out (Kugane and Limsa). Most people I ran across were playing actual songs, and I personally found a nice secluded spot to plunk away.

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Originally Posted by Malzian

My only major gripe (as someone who does play an instrument) is that the way the system is designed utilizing skills in this manner... You can't play chords. Single note is fine and all for simple pieces, but the only way to make chords with the system is to record a song multiple times utilizing each note in the chord at its position in the composition (with millisecond precision if you want it to be seamless) and then layer those tracks together in a video/sound editor.

It's not a system breaking thing and you can still make music with it, it's just a little disappointing. I understand the technical issues involved, but I'd still love to have some chords available to me.

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It is very disappointing. One of my friends and I did manage to play a decent sounding duet, but the hardest part was trying to get both of our notes to play at the same time. A macro with rigid rests or even a metronome might have helped.

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Originally Posted by Fhaerron

My thoughts?

Well why don't we have an option to mute all those sounds??

I logged in yesterday after a very long tiresome day... it gave me a headache, I swear I never saw so many bards even though my server is a ghosttown, seems like everybody logged in just to play music, everybody was just standing there and no matter where I ran to, loads of people just playing weird tones trough each other ... I teleported to my house.

Seems I'll be avoiding people/town for another month.

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You can mute player sounds at the bottom of the sound settings ("other PCs"). It will disable other people's crafting, emote and battle skill sounds as well, unless they are in your party. It's not perfect but better than secluding yourself somewhere.

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Originally Posted by Kahnom

Ps4 here and Nope,I don’t have a keyboard and don’t plan to use any macro.Do everything manually could prove more challenge and more rewarding/satisfying.

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37 actions with a controller at a speed of 16th notes with ~75BPM?
I do not believe that can be done.

It's hard enough to do with a computer keyboard.

Personally, I' rather put that kind of effort in playing the real Mc-Coy and then route MIDI to the computer and into FF-XIV. :D

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Originally Posted by Malzian

My only major gripe (as someone who does play an instrument) is that the way the system is designed utilizing skills in this manner... You can't play chords. Single note is fine and all for simple pieces, but the only way to make chords with the system is to record a song multiple times utilizing each note in the chord at its position in the composition (with millisecond precision if you want it to be seamless) and then layer those tracks together in a video/sound editor.

It's not a system breaking thing and you can still make music with it, it's just a little disappointing. I understand the technical issues involved, but I'd still love to have some chords available to me.

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*chuckles* Now you know how I feel as an IRL alto-flute player. :D

My ex-bf is ps4 with controller and could play a few ff songs just fine, I couldn't get past the opening notes of the Main Theme of FF7, but... music is hard lol

Also, on Faerie there were very few people playing around to be a nuisance, some folks trying it out outside Mi Khetto's in Gridania, one person trying it out near the aetheryte and NONE in Rhalgr's, some in my linkshells were showing off in Ishgard, I think, but there wasn't talk about players everywhere (I went inside the house, myself, don't wanna bother everyone with my zero musical ability)

its so dumb and pointless, and poorly implemented. They should've put time and resource into my damn egi glamours

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Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

My ex-bf is ps4 with controller and could play a few ff songs just fine, I couldn't get past the opening notes of the Main Theme of FF7, but... music is hard lol

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I guess it would help to only assign the notes the piece actually needs instead of 3 full octaves.

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Originally Posted by TristanBlane

its so dumb and pointless, and poorly implemented. They should've put time and resource into my damn egi glamours

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As a non SCH player, Egi glamours are also pointless to me. Even more so than a funky little musical toy that, clearly, took very little DEV time to create and implement.

The idea of it is really quite nice, the implementation however is underwhelming imho.

The notes need to happen instantly...they do not, the lag between clicking + the actual sound is horrible.
We need to be able to use in macro!! Not only to free our hotbars up but to be able to assign even some degree of control over the tempo between notes etc.

I thank them for adding a feature but unfortunately ..it already feels antiquated, cumbersome and in need of drastic change. :(

I like the idea -- however I really wish the developers would've spent more time on the things the community actually wants -- like Egi/fairy/lunchbox glamours, a glamour log (coming soon?) a Coerthan housing area, a male bunny suit and so on.

Yes I realize that those require varying amounts of time - but they're things that we've been asking for for YEARS.

I know the team went to all this trouble to make individual notes playable... but it's just more of a neat little thing that will die off in a week than something that's actually cool to do. I say this being a player of three instruments IRL.

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Originally Posted by MistyMew

The notes need to happen instantly...they do not, the lag between clicking + the actual sound is horrible.

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Umm, MistyMew, you are playing an internet game. There WILL be latency.
When connecting MIDI capable instruments to a LOCAL PC via a fast USB connection, people still have trouble getting latencies that are low enough to play music comfortably.

There is no way in hell for SE to make this feature latency free or reduce latency down to < 20ms.

Just to put things into perspective: a 16th note at 100BPM is played for 150ms (60s / 100BPM = 0.6s/beat divided by 4 notes per beat = 150ms). Even if you only have a 50ms internet lag (which most gamers would consider pretty damn good) that's already 1/3rd of a notes value. Not to mention latency spikes.

I do agree that it is damn confusing, I tried playing a fast run of a scale and needed 5 attempts because my ear screwed with me. :D

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Originally Posted by Granyala

*chuckles* Now you know how I feel as an IRL alto-flute player. :D

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LoL. I can see that. I play the guitar, so it's just all the more annoying for me. XD

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Originally Posted by Stormfur

I like the idea -- however I really wish the developers would've spent more time on the things the community actually wants -- like Egi/fairy/lunchbox glamours, a glamour log (coming soon?) a Coerthan housing area, a male bunny suit and so on.

Yes I realize that those require varying amounts of time - but they're things that we've been asking for for YEARS.

I know the team went to all this trouble to make individual notes playable... but it's just more of a neat little thing that will die off in a week than something that's actually cool to do. I say this being a player of three instruments IRL.

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Actually the community has asked for it for a while, though not quite as fervently as other things. Personally I did want it but that was because of how LotRO handled music (Look up 'Weatherstock' on YouTube and enjoy).

In that game you used an emote, /play, to go into performance mode and then you could use the skill keys to play notes with the modifier keys to change notes. But they also incorporated the ABC file system to automate the process of playing songs where you could do '/play <songname>' and it would use the file '<songname>.abc' to play the song. The benefit of that being that there are also tools to take midi files and convert them to ABC files directly.

It meant you could record a song in midi, convert it and play it back in the game easily. But then Turbine is a US company, so there were the inevitable covers of copyrighted songs which SE can't afford to have happen as a JP company.

As a bard main, I like the idea and the flavor behind it, but in its current state it has almost no draw for me. They really just need to swap it up into its own UI where you orchestrate the thing youre trying to play as if its a sequencer or something, then when you've done that, a button back in the regular UI can be pressed to fire off the string you sequenced, allowing you to utilize things like proper times and timing in general, chords (since this is on a harp after all) and so on, and most importantly, avoiding all lag and latency at least for you, and only before the initial note for everyone else. Then, until you change it, that button will play the thing you made from start to finish as long as you don't interrupt it. I realize that makes it basically a one soundfont MIDI sequencer with direct input and playback, but right now, that is a mile high leap above what we've got, and people would get a lot more enjoyment out of it too. I realize that is unlikely to the edge of impossible, but right now its like trying to play Flight of the Bumblebees on a tuba in a blizzard. :/

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Originally Posted by Granyala

Umm, MistyMew, you are playing an internet game. There WILL be latency.

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The request is to single out local playback for a more comfortable experience. Specifically, instead of waiting for server acknowledgement (the obvious reason for the delay) the client side should immediately play the sound effect (the music note) as soon as the button is clicked/pressed, and only then send out the network communications and check with the server.

Now there may be cost reasons that prevent the devs from giving the Perform system special treatment, as it is very obvious that they are trying to reuse existing actions framework to implement music performances. But that's up to the devs. Technically, it is possible.

Whether they want to do it, is another matter, and I'm not optimistic that they will do anything, as it is a rather involved change. I have a feeling that they are just going to keep the delay because they don't feel it in Tokyo. But regardless, it is important for players who are really annoyed by this delay to express that it is a big put-off.

Honestly? I think that 'Perform' should be a single button that activates 'Perform Mode' where all the buttons are arranged on their own hotbars. Like when you enter a PvP zone or hop in a vehicle for a quest and unique hotbars come up. This business about making macros to swap my archer hotbars with my bards is honestly for the birds, especially if they're going to be expanding on this system.

Second, I'd enjoy a way to save at least a couple of songs under their own buttons. Just one or two at most. I understand the lack of macros but if you're trying to pick out something yourself and don't really have a tune in mind, if you don't write it down once you find something you like...oopse.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

The request is to single out local playback for a more comfortable experience. Specifically, instead of waiting for server acknowledgement (the obvious reason for the delay) the client side should immediately play the sound effect (the music note) as soon as the button is clicked/pressed, and only then send out the network communications and check with the server.

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While that might work for your local playback, I'm not sure what would happen to other players listening. Esp if you input faster than the server recognizes actions, it might end up being a nice piece for you and a jumble of notes for others.

Ultimately, I doubt that it would be worth the DEV time, considering this is a tiny gimmick for one of the many classes only.

So i have quick question about this, sorry if it was already asked. As long as we don't stream/record it in any way, are we allowed to play songs from other FF games?

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Originally Posted by Selova

So i have quick question about this, sorry if it was already asked. As long as we don't stream/record it in any way, are we allowed to play songs from other FF games?

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You can play whatever you want unless you monetize it.
Dear Lord why are people so ridiculously paranoid about copyright issues?

If your kid grabs a flute in Kindergarten and plays a melody by ear, do people expect it to be sued too?

As long as you are not a popular streamer, making money by performing, you have NOTHING to worry about. That screen you agreed to is nothing but meaningless "just in case" legal-blah that will never need to be acted upon.

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Originally Posted by Granyala

While that might work for your local playback, I'm not sure what would happen to other players listening. Esp if you input faster than the server recognizes actions, it might end up being a nice piece for you and a jumble of notes for others.

Ultimately, I doubt that it would be worth the DEV time, considering this is a tiny gimmick for one of the many classes only.

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That's not really a problem. I mean we are providing feedback, it is not our job to think of every possible obstacle and lay everything on a plate nicely with proofs and industry best practices and so on. That's not our job. In providing feedback, we give the goals, then devs determine how to get it done, whether it's worth the cost, and eventually what exactly is going to be done.

Forgive me for being frank, but I really don't see any point in players debating the technicalities of something and whether it's worth the dev resources. We tell them what we want, and then it's the business of the devs.

And what we want: get rid of that annoying delay on our local client side.

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Originally Posted by Zfz

Forgive me for being frank, but I really don't see any point in players debating the technicalities of something

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Engineer, can't help myself. Always end up thinking about the technical side. :D

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Originally Posted by Granyala

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Dear Lord why are people so ridiculously paranoid about copyright issues?
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I do believe there was an update to the terms of service mentioning the possibility of being banned over it.