Naoshi Mizuta for 5.0

I'd be okay with a guest track here and there but Soken does a great job. Naoshi Mizuta is also great, and I like the idea of cameo tracks here and there, but Soken continually proves himself as a great composer. If anything, I'd like to hear Soken's work in more games.

I don't mind bring Naoshi to compose some music for the gaame, but don't replace Soken. Keep him as main composer.

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Originally Posted by Fevelle

No, thank you. Soken is FFXIV's composer and he does a pretty damn good job. Please keep your FFXI nostalgia away from FFXIV's dev team.

Too late, Mizuta's presence in the game has been here ever since 1.X and ARR, even if it's just two themes.

As said earlier, rather than replace, have them team up as well as work individually for FFXIV. More music is always good.

I'd like to see some new composers, not (just) because I think Soken's less directed themes (e.g. those that aren't a play on a single leitmotif, or essentially character songs), but because I'd love to see ways in which the music, through different composers, can direct different perspectives onto the plots, characters, and themes of a given series or expansion thereof.

Take our upcoming Stormblood expansion for example. One of the ideas that's been popping around the forums is that perhaps—in fact quite likely—the Garlean occupation of Ala Mhigo wasn't *all* bad, and between what few good things the populace caught onto it or the new generation was born into, the insurgents we're likely to meet there are going to come from mixed loyalties, mixed traditions, and mixed ideas as to how Ala Mhigo should be reshaped. One leader might want a return to the honor and culture of the civilization mostly as it was, while another is essentially just another Garlean (in his education, philosophy of ethics, etc.), but one who aims to create a Ala Mhigo, be that for men and women of Garlean, Gyn Abanian, or whatever other decent, that can stand on its own and with the fullest (fearful) respect of its neighbors, rather than being exploited as a colony. Lengthy backstory done, it would be likely that any plot-lines made via these two characters would likely feel very different, almost putting an entirely different spin on what the central theme of it all might be. Having a distinct composer for each, if the two cooperate to build these themes backwards from the points where they intercept or twist over each other, could be spectacular.

The second is just that I feel like the music here is still painfully limited, as with most expansions. Between two expansions, it still feels like we still have only half the tracks of a given single player FF game, and (imo) fewer memorable generic battle or zone themes than most competing MMOs. And it's unfair to ask Soken to make up that difference by himself when those competing OSTs are usually the work of multiple composers.

(While Nobuo may have impacted Heavensward's (non-boss-related) OSTs perhaps even more than Soken as far as the overall impression, a single theme—however pervasive—does not double the staff. Soken could use a second guy up there. And for a series that has prided itself on its music, that should be more than worth the one additional salary.)

Edit: ...That said, Naoshi Mizuta is leagues away from who all I'd have in mind. Good Kobold theme from 1.x (still in Pharos hard now), but I'm looking for something a bit grander and more nuanced, if anything. Something to do what Soken doesn't really seem aimed towards himself.