An honest suggestion to improve FFXIV music

[reality_check]

I really enjoy FFXIV's soundtrack -- it's great and this is undeniable.

I remember when I first heard "Thunderer" (Lahabrea/Twintania track,) I was so into the music. Now, I can't stand the song. In fact, I have the exact opposite sentiment to the song now. When the song starts up the feeling is akin to chewing on rusty nails.

There's a philosophy in radio that you can actually shorten the lifespan of a great song if you play it too often. And, it is inevitable that eventually people will bore of a song after they've listened to it too much.

Unfortunately, FFXIV kills all of its great tracks incredibly quickly but forcing players to loop the same song over and over during the many hours they spend in the game.

FFXIV's music would be a lot more powerful and engaging if people weren't forced to burn out of the same song literally within the first few hours of attempting a new encounter (the same can be said for that main battle theme that plays over and over in every zone, city themes that loop etc etc...)

Here's my suggestion: a jukebox function. Allow players, through the UI, a function where they can unlock and choose with background music they want to listen to. Maybe even create a playlist? A reward, for example, of defeating Ramuh could be the option to now play his song through the jukebox wherever in Eorzea you'd like.

I hesitate to say this too, knowing people's knee jerk reactions to fan service and micro transactions, but you could even include the ability to purchase and add songs from previous FF titles into your jukebox.

I honestly think that with the proper development and implementation this could turn into a feature that would give FFXIV a very unique feel to any other MMORPG out there while breathing life into the many tracks that FFXIV and other Final Fantasies have to offer.

[Dark-Saviour]

The 'cycle' of music was one reason GW2 had no hope of winning me over with its soundtrack.
To me, an area, encounter, etc. needs a specific theme. The music needs to be as much a part of defining that portion of the game as anything else. Once the music ceases to be fixed, the game starts to all run together and lose a large part of what makes it memorable, in my eyes.

We do need a way to mute the bloody battle and fate music though. That already has the unfortunate affect of causing everything to become muddled and starts to kill off the uniqueness of each area...

[reality_check]

The 'cycle' of music was one reason GW2 had no hope of winning me over with its soundtrack.
To me, an area, encounter, etc. needs a specific theme. The music needs to be as much a part of defining that portion of the game as anything else. Once the music ceases to be fixed, the game starts to all run together and lose a large part of what makes it memorable, in my eyes.

We do need a way to mute the bloody battle and fate music though. That already has the unfortunate affect of causing everything to become muddled and starts to kill off the uniqueness of each area...

Well, this could be an "unlockable" feature. After you've played through the area with the default music, you would have the option of playing what you want to listen to. I don't agree that forcing players to listen to the same theme over and over again adds any sort of uniqueness. Players generally just mute the BGM at that point and put music on in the background.

[TheRogueX]

We do need a way to mute the bloody battle and fate music though.

Music such as "Hard to Miss" (the normal Notorious Monster FATE music) and "Torn from the Heavens" (the final tier music for many of the multi-tier FATES and for really hard ones like "The Eyes Have it" and "Go, Go, Gorgimera") is some of the best music in the game. They're two of my favorite tracks.

For me, they need to write unique music for all the dungeons, including unique trash mob combat music. That's where it gets exceptionally repetitive, imho.

Heresy !
Weight of the land can't be replaced by cheap metal !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmBU8eUWREU

Indeed. The Primals that have dynamic music based on what phase you're on are awesome.

[DenariusJay]

I turned off the music after the first 2 weeks of playing. The combat music got really annoying, and the fate song got aggravating, specially once your start your atma farm.

I just throw on my own music now in the background, Metallica during Titan = epicness.

[lololink]

I just throw on my own music now in the background, Metallica during Titan = epicness.

Heresy !
Weight of the land can't be replaced by cheap metal !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmBU8eUWREU

[Violyre]

I just throw on my own music now in the background, Metallica during Titan = epicness.

I don't think I could turn off Titan's music, I use it too much for timing.

[Mardel]

One of the biggest issues is the reuse of coil music in second coil. I know coil is supposed to be a "theme" however music has to have quite a bit of variations in it and give it a different feel per area. Now I believe Soken and his team are very talented; they bring some incredible tracks and give life to fights like primals. However, I do think they need to take a page from his dragon-dragoon days and add variations in the tracks to make them feel different but have the same theme intact.


Composing music is a tough job, but I will agree that there does need to be new tracks, variations, or the ability for us to choose the music we hear in game. Alternatively they could remix a bunch of music from other FF(s) and use them as alternative tracks for us to listen to in game if they gave us the option to change the music per fight.

[Shougun]

I'd like to turn combat music off too.. Its not that its bad but I'd ---much--- rather listen to one song consistently and moreover I like the zone's songs more. Walk into an area with enchanted music you love, get random aggro, -sigh-..

Let us turn off the battle music or something lol. Overworld battle music turned off on monsters approximately easy / even match, for big fights overworld sure add it back but 90% of the fights are not. More battle musics would help, remix the old FF battles for FATEs? But a lot of times it is just the fact that I hear the music chopped up because 2 second monster fight, switched mini zones so music changes, 2 second monster fight, new zone, mini zone, monster -- I don't get time to enjoy a song XD.

Juke box would be cool too though, I thought they said they were adding it? Or was that just for housing.

[Tauu]

The way I see it, the only way for in-game music to remain entertaining is to have like ten major variations of each song chosen at random when entering a zone or battle. If the devs could do that it would be great but that's a very tall order.

There are internet radio stations with 1,000+ song playlists with a constant stream of new material plus special programming on weekends. I've been listening to one through a year of FFXIV and it never gets old.