Guild Wars 2

Hello.

In the patch notes it says:

• All musical instruments have undergone audio rework to improve the latency of audio-sample playback.
• Musical instruments that are tempo locked (Musical Frame Drum, and certain modes of the Musical Lute and Musical Bass Guitar) should now have consistent tempo.

The only thing I can notice is that it’s now harder to play chords on multiple octaves. It seems the game checks what the octave of a note when it’s played instead of when it’s pressed.

Playing instruments is basically all I do in this game at this point and I have a hard time playing my favorite songs now.

Yessss. I hope they take back the changes they’ve made, because this is so, so awful. Playing music is also my favorite thing to do in GW2, and it’s completely impossible to do properly now :c

Mag choir bell works much better than it did before. I feel like I can play notes faster without them being put on recharge, and I can actually listen to myself play music with it now instead of having to memorize songs and mute my audio before playing to avoid throwing myself off.

The instrument changes is awful.

WIth the flut, if you use a note, you can’t use the same note anymore, even after changing octave. So all is going wrong with music. I still like the fact that the animation doesn’t disapear anymore during long song.

With the harp it’s really, really bad. If you swap octaves too fast your song will just sound like trash.

Please bring back old function it’s just not playable.

I run scripts from Music Box which allows you to create your music before playing it in game— and all of them don’t work at all, now. Whatever they have done, it has interfered with the notes of the instruments because they are all incredibly off, now. Is this a glitch? I hope they change it back. It definitely seems more than a change to audio quality and tempo.

At least one of my custom song sounds better with the changes. But well, it’s not supposed to be like this. And I don’t even use macros.

I wonder if them finally noticing music instruments after a year means they’ll do more development with them. Matching keys and adding semitones would do wonders for all the instruments. There’s direct revenue tied to them through the gem store too. If ANET had the best mmo music system they’d be able to sell more instruments.

Cody Crichton.7516:

Khyan.7039:

The instrument changes is awful.

WIth the flut, if you use a note, you can’t use the same note anymore, even after changing octave. So all is going wrong with music. I still like the fact that the animation doesn’t disapear anymore during long song.

I found and fixed the bug causing problems specific to the flute instrument, now awaiting regression testing before the fix makes its way to you.

Thank you.

Cody Crichton.7516:

Khyan.7039:

The instrument changes is awful.

WIth the flut, if you use a note, you can’t use the same note anymore, even after changing octave. So all is going wrong with music. I still like the fact that the animation doesn’t disapear anymore during long song.

I found and fixed the bug causing problems specific to the flute instrument, now awaiting regression testing before the fix makes its way to you.

It is more than just the Flute that needs fixing now after this horrible patch. So you guys removed tempo lock on several (or all) instruments, only to mess everything else up.

As of me writing this post, I just recently verified almost everything I could play before this patch is no longer playable on my Harp!

Thank you, Anet. Now I am even more livid than I was before about the Gem Store instruments, for example, the cooldown on music notes that needs to go away since hitting music notes gives no gameplay advantage whatsoever.

Can you guys not make instruments how they worked before (which was flawless except for note cooldowns) and just get rid of the note cooldowns? That is all that really needed to happen, along with getting rid of the cooldown on the change octave buttons (the patch notes addressed, I think).

Anet’s response, “Yea but hitting the same note(s) over and over can annoy other players…”

That’s been an excuse for too long. There is an Option to turn off/lower the sound of instruments, plus that, anybody can pull out the obnoxious Bass Guitar and just spam note 8 on the highest octave all day without even playing it very fast (it does not require playing multiple notes to annoy players, believe me).

Address the real problems instruments. Just get rid of the cooldown altogether, please. The restriction is a joke. Thank you.

looks like we have an unsung hero in here

hue

insanemaniac.2456:

looks like we have an unsung hero in here

hue

We won’t be unsung for long if these issues do not get fixed. I have the entire Musician’s Guild of Tyria [MGT] lined up and ready to go to mob forums (among many other music friends of mine). That is not a threat. Most of us in the Guild paid for every instrument with a lot of Gems (4,200 worth) and we expect them to work well.

We will see what happens…

I only like one change in to the musical instruments; The floating notes that come out of the character as you play. Other than that, it has screwed up all forms of playing music.

I myself as a member of [MGT] Musician’s Guild of Tyria am appalled at the instrument changes. We loved the old system and could play just fine with it, but now, with the weird octave changes that don’t even work. Chord’s are now just a mash of notes. Very plain and simple songs are still playable, but that’s no fun or entertaining.

I think I stand for the entire music community on this:

Please Remove Note Cooldowns. They are unneeded and limit musical performance by players. Bring back the old octave switching, this new version makes a large majority of songs unplayable. But do keep the Music Note Floater animations, as they are the perfect addition to the instruments.

P.S. The Lute is very quiet and horn/flute are not in the same tone as the harp and other instruments. Fixes for these would be much appreciated by all.

I hope these issues can be resolved soon,

Jaffa [MGT]

Hey There!

This could be the good chance to make the Flute and the Horn to have the same tone as the Harp/Lute/Magnanimous Bell!

Is it possible to do that? It’ll be great!

Sora Vanitas [MGT]

Jaffa.1845:

I only like one change in to the musical instruments; The floating notes that come out of the character as you play. Other than that, it has screwed up all forms of playing music.

I myself as a member of [MGT] Musician’s Guild of Tyria am appalled at the instrument changes. We loved the old system and could play just fine with it, but now, with the weird octave changes that don’t even work. Chord’s are now just a mash of notes. Very plain and simple songs are still playable, but that’s no fun or entertaining.

I think I stand for the entire music community on this:

Please Remove Note Cooldowns. They are unneeded and limit musical performance by players. Bring back the old octave switching, this new version makes a large majority of songs unplayable. But do keep the Music Note Floater animations, as they are the perfect addition to the instruments.

P.S. The Lute is very quiet and horn/flute are not in the same tone as the harp and other instruments. Fixes for these would be much appreciated by all.

I hope these issues can be resolved soon,

Jaffa [MGT]

Did you read Cody Crichton’s answer? I guess not. He said the issue will be fixed since the octave change has bad ping.

Khyan.7039:

Did you read Cody Crichton’s answer? I guess not. He said the issue will be fixed since the octave change has bad ping.

Of course we read Cody Crichton’s post, but did you?

Cody Crichton said, and I quote, “There’s a bug that got introduced which causes the octave switch to take effect +100ms later than it is supposed to in the audio script.” end of quote

That has absolutely nothing to do with 100ms worth of ping, but everything to do with unique numeric timer values within the game code gone wrong tied to the instruments that messed up the octave switch buttons due to the recent patch changes that likely caused an unintended chain reaction.

Cody Crichton.7516:

Khyan.7039:

The instrument changes is awful.

WIth the flut, if you use a note, you can’t use the same note anymore, even after changing octave. So all is going wrong with music. I still like the fact that the animation doesn’t disapear anymore during long song.

I found and fixed the bug causing problems specific to the flute instrument, now awaiting regression testing before the fix makes its way to you.

@ Cody

where we have currently your attention here.. just some little side questions

Are there any plans for GW2’s near future to add more lovely missing “classical” Music Instruments, liek for example a Saxophone, or a Xylophone, or a Triangle, or a Cello, or a Ocarina/Pan Flute, or a Violin or a “normal” Guitar" (and fix please the sounds of the bass Guitar to make it not sound like such a bad broken car motor/piano please, its horrible and by far not sounding like a Bass Guitar here, this is a real Bass Guitar sounding like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSLqTQlZ_4Q

and not like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWdLSGGyrYU

I hope the great difference between both is quickly realizeable by just watchign these 2 examples.

Another quick question to you as one of the responsible Sound Designers.

Are they any plans to improve somewhen in the future as a part of quality of life feature the Music Instruments to make it easier to handle them, even as a total Music Noob??
I mean with this question, there are some prime examples of other games out there that also have playable music instruments, which use different “Systems” that make it even for Music Noobs possible to play “Songs”, without the needc to actually play “self” the long,. but instead let the “game play the song for you” and all what you need to to basically create for the game the “Music Sheet” that the game should play for you with your chosen instrument that should be used for it.

Games that come into mind are:

Lords of the Rings Online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LYvem67qCs

Mabinogi : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnq_Rs0bfq0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sl3PQ3tZvI

(my dream is it to see such kind of coordinated bands to arise also in GW2 to play together with a multitude of different instruments various songs and own creations, maybe even as a large crowd as a big orcrestra, that woudl be so awesome and epic, but for that to happen I thing instzruments need to become first more various and more accessible, also for those people mechanically wise, which don’t play instruments in real life.

Black Desert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KelpRPbe6SM
this shows for example a simple system that could make it easier to play, by letting the game show us when to press what to play a song right kind of Guitar Hero Style

And last question:

Can you please improve Music Instruments by adding as a feature also “Vocaloids” ??
If old games like Mabinogi have such a feature, making it possible that your characters can actually “sing” with their own virtual voice, I’m pretty sure, somethign like this should also be possible to GW2, or not???

because if you can play Music Instruments, one should be also able to sing to it to make the song complete and perfect.

Vocaloid Technology is pretty much well expertised/known and used pretty much everywhere already in Japan for example, there exist even labels and song studios for just virtual voices that sing songs (lol) , the most well known one for alot of peopel should be this here:

Hatsune Miku

As reminder, this is sung not by a real person, but by a virtual created voice!

“Music” is a topic I thing has for GW2 as one of the very very few MMOs out there that provides even the feature of Music Instruments (after my increased begging and suggestions years ago xD) I think alot more great potential to become one of GW2s greatest social features, as music connects everyone regardles of who or what you and or into what you believe in … and I would so love to see for GW2 that music gets improved and should become more, than just only a cheap gemstore item for making some bucks from us.

It has the strong potential to be so much more than just only this and it would be sad, if this potential would stay unused by Anet, don’t you think that too???

Also improving music playing with some more animations would ve awsome, Because nothing is more boring than playing instruments and characters standing just around and doing nothing, not even mioving somehow kind of rhythmically at least their bodies to the music. that was maynbe normal for those older games that had not the technology for these animations, but I think for GW2 should be a bit more in, than what we have currently, or???

my 2 cents, would be awsome to get some answers on those question by either you or maybe some one else of you Sond Designers at Anet who might want to answer which are maybe also reading this thread

All GW2 instrument can ONLY play in the Key of a minor or C major, if a Song has any occidental in it it WILL out of tone even after transpose it to -a minor scale , one a song has been transpose the has transpose it the instrument lose some play range.

In nut shell there a lots work to be done before a song is playable with GW2 instruments because 90% of any song is not in the key of a- minor. So are the sound team going to add semitone any time soon ?

Bump

A little reminder for Cody, can anything of my side questions be answered?

I’m also happy with just the answer of “I can’t say anything about these things” if that’s the case, then so I’d just like to hear your personal opinion about the questions, if something like what I asked about would be even “possible at all” technically like adding Vocaloid technology to the game to enable our Characters to get a voice for singing which can be based on our Character Voices, that our Characters received back lately with Heart of Thorns.

Adding more new Instruments that are missing is sure no big thing technically, but here I can guess only, that you added so far no new ones, because they maybe don’t sell so well as expected?/ aren’t worth the investment of ressources maybe, because stuff like silly ugly wings simply sells better?

And improving the functionality of music instruments I think simply never stood on your plans so far, right, cause of beign busy with many other things, like making the music for HoT and such things?

Instruments seems to works well after patch. Thanks.
But now please, it’s possible to do more instruments in the game? Such as violin or (and) piano? :P