Bard Warframe Speculation, Discussion and Feedback Thread

[UseNet]

1 minute ago, Xekrin said:

I sometimes wish the same could be done with certain weapon sounds, they are fine in short bursts, but when spammed to high heaven I just have to turn off my sound.

simulors come to mind. they have a pretty obnoxious sound effect.

[tnccs215]

I do like the idea of a "mute step sequencer" button under a player's profile.

I'm incredibly excited about the step sequencer, and can't wait to give it a try.

But for god's sake, radio is obnoxiously repetitive and i don't need a similar experience in my life.

[Rhekemi]

@dragonfuryattack , you should go through the topic and add all names (even joke names) to the first post.

Never know if we'll reference it in the DC if we get to name her. 

If it's like Inaros and the DC doesn't get to name her, welp, that's that.

[Unus]

Taliesin might be a good one to go for if we're going for a historical basis in the vein of, say, Vauban. There's also Goch and Gwilym as well. Any of those ring off the tongue for anybody?

Edited November 5, 2016 by Unus

[Zarozian]

If it's going to be another Greek frame, then it should be called Hera, since it looks like a Cuckoo bird.

[Kuestenjung]

Of course he or she should be named Troubadix.

[SugarShow]

call him Doremi

Edited November 5, 2016 by SugarShow

[BrapQueen]

So, I'm sure by now most people know about the Bard frame enabling players to create their own music through the use of a Sequencer, which is just a tool that plays notes in a programmed order. From what we've seen from PAX Australia we have a pretty simple looking Sequencer, albeit pretty to look at, but extremely limited in use. As person who's been getting further and further into music production (been making music for about eleven months now), I think that maybe it would be best to replace the sequencer with a piano roll. Now, just to fill you in on what the heck I'm talking about, let me use some screen shots from my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and what we've seen in the work in progress footage from PAX Australia to show you what the difference, advantages, and disadvantages of using a piano roll over a sequencer would be.

Edit: I'd just like to note that I'm not bashing DE's decisions, but rather providing critical feedback and suggestions as to what is wrong and what could be improved with the current state of the sequencer. Just thought I'd get that out of the way before people started yelling at me for complaining so early on.

Edit 2: Since some people may not have seen it, go here at 22:13 and you'll see Steve's demonstration of how it works in it's current state. This is what I'll be discussing.

Keep in mind, all of the PAX screen caps are works in progress, so maybe features I mention will be added at some point, so I will be writing this from what we know of the sequencer.

So to start off, let's take a look at what we're working with!

Here's the Sequencer (Top) and the piano roll in FL Studio (Bottom)

Spoiler

 

 

So right off the bat there are obvious differences, aesthetically especially but right now lets focus at the core details as to what each does in their current states.

The Sequencer is able to play simple melodies quarter (or maybe eighth depending on tempo) note melodies ranging from A to G. Also good to note chords are also an option as it's shown to allow playing multiple notes on a single beat. So what are the pros and cons to this thing?

Sequencer Pros:

• Super user friendly and accessible! To anyone who isn't familiar with making music, they could still toy around with it with a minute or two and figure out how it works.
• Aesthetically appealing and fitting for Warframe. Obviously, since the UI was made to fit with the frame.

Sequencer Cons:

• Currently no BPM or Tempo changing functionality is shown. In the demo Steve says that for reasons of being able to perform with other players with the Bard frames (why that's a concern, who knows), you're locked into the default tempo.
• The further up your melody goes the more annoying it will be to know which note you're on. This is mostly a design flaw seeing as since the Sequencer sprawls out in radial fashion from the arm of the frame, the ends of the sequencer grow farther and father apart, causing it to be something I can already see being a nuisance.
• A to G? Really? Although not serious in any way what key it starts on but it goes from A to G. Not a full octave. I'm assuming they though people wouldn't have a need to do an octave higher than A but it's a strange design choice none the less.

On to compare it to the Piano Roll in FL Studio a DAW by Image-Line. I'd just like to point out the obvious that since FL Studio is a professional DAW that it's built for music production and has been worked on for many years. I understand it's a high standard to put DE to, but I genuinely feel that even a basic piano roll would be far more accessible than a sequencer. With that out of the way, let's compare.

A Piano Roll in it's original form is a piece of perforated paper that controlled the keys of a piano that one doesn't have to play. Reference these things. In modern times, it's used to describe the application or window in which you can create MIDI information. MIDI information is just fancy talk for piano notation, notes, whatever you wanna call it (that's just a simple definition).

Piano Roll Pros:

• Creative ability goes through the roof! Maybe you've seen Black MIDI (here's the black midi song Pi by Gingeas) videos where you see ridiculous amounts of midi information playing songs in the most extra way possible, but it's just an example of what you can accomplish should a piano roll be present.
• Layout makes arranging and creating a thousand times easier. No musical talent is needed. You can see each individual note on the piano to the left (or in the very least good headers like middle C should you be unfamiliar with the layout of a piano), and the grid so you can weigh all your options right there.
• This is a really important one, you can easily see the beats and bars. Obviously, if you're making music and have no sense of timing, well the piano roll makes it easy! At the top there's numbers indicating what beat you're on. Even further there are smaller divides so you can see things like quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, etc. within that bar. And that segways me right into the other thing.
• you can adjust note length very quickly and easily. The thing about sequencers is they're locked into a note length. In a piano roll receiving MIDI information, you can shorten those suckers down to as short as you want. This allows for more complex melodies and arrangements to be made, really bringing out the diversity between players. Some may want to have slow calming melodies, while others may have more complex and upbeat melodies. And of course since tempo isn't something we'll be able to change, it would all still be in sync. (Although that just reminded me most people won't know what keys are and won't be in the same scales as each other. Seriously why can't we change the BPM if it won't sound good together anyways, the thing you're trying to avoid will perpetuate unless if you force us to use a pentatonic scale, if we want to play songs together, then friends would set their BPMs and arrange in certain scales to compliment one another. But I digress)

Piano Roll Cons:

• Not entirely user friendly or appealing. Although I personally see it as far more user friendly than the sequencer they displayed, some people may not be enthralled by a grid system.
• I'm really struggling to think of cons plz help guys

So there you have it, the pros and cons of a Sequencer v. a Piano Roll. As a person who wants to express their creativity and be able to share it with others, and given that Warframe is making themselves (to an extent) a medium to do so, I see no reason as to why a piano roll couldn't replace a sequencer. They basically do the same thing just the piano roll makes it ten times easier.

I'd love to hear your guy's input on this, and should it graze the eyes of an employee at DE, think you could maybe pull a few strings? Just joking, but the ideas here. Thanks for reading, and I'll just shamelessly plug my soundcloud in case anyone was curious. :)

 

Edited November 6, 2016 by Madam_Cloud

[DJ_Vauban]

I...honestly can't really think of any cons myself, been making music for like six years now and I can't think of anything that would speak against it ._. could you maybe link the clip of the stream maybe? been kinda wanting to see it and it might help people who haven't seen the stream, like me, to understand the sequencer itself better owo

[BrapQueen]

Just now, DJ_Vauban said:

I...honestly can't really think of any cons myself, been making music for like six years now and I can't think of anything that would speak against it ._. could you maybe link the clip of the stream maybe? been kinda wanting to see it and it might help people who haven't seen the stream, like me, to understand the sequencer itself better owo

Wabam, it's at 22:13 when Steve shows his (somewhat cringey) demonstration. He tried, I'll give him that. But he's obviously not the most musically inclined.

[DJ_Vauban]

Hm...yeah I honestly have no idea how a piano roll could be worse except that it might be a nightmare to program lol, I think they went with this idea because as steve said, he doesn't want it to be completely chaotic but then again, that kind of...ruins the purpose of making your own melodies when you are so...limited owo

[BrapQueen]

Just now, DJ_Vauban said:

Hm...yeah I honestly have no idea how a piano roll could be worse except that it might be a nightmare to program lol, I think they went with this idea because as steve said, he doesn't want it to be completely chaotic but then again, that kind of...ruins the purpose of making your own melodies when you are so...limited owo

Like I said they might as well lock us into a Pentatonic scale if they don't want it to be chaotic. The idea is good and wholesome but there's no way to execute it without inhibiting that which they're advertising. If they said it was more of a, "Oh ya, you can use these 5 notes and make melodies with it, it's super simple and can't fail at all," then in that case there's no problem, but when they want to allow players the freedom and creativity of making music but want to inhibit and restrict certain actions, it's more like a mini-game like Wyrmius or Flappy Zephyr, than actual customization.

[DJ_Vauban]

A minigame was actually what came to mind as well owo you press and turn a few knobs and the melody that plays opens a door or whatever. I really hope that we get to have way more freedom because I was really damn hyped for the frame owo now I'm honestly not all that sure anymore.

[BrapQueen]

Just now, DJ_Vauban said:

A minigame was actually what came to mind as well owo you press and turn a few knobs and the melody that plays opens a door or whatever. I really hope that we get to have way more freedom because I was really damn hyped for the frame owo now I'm honestly not all that sure anymore.

Same. Although, it's not coming out next as Steve said, so maybe, here's hoping that maybe they'll go the extra mile and throw in a piano roll. I know they're loaded on work but the effort put into making the sequencer could be put into making a piano roll.

[DJ_Vauban]

I really hope we get a piano roll, pretty sure I'm not the only one who wants to play something like this during missions :3

[BrapQueen]

Just now, DJ_Vauban said:

I really hope we get a piano roll, pretty sure I'm not the only one who wants to play something like this during missions :3

I'm pretty sure that's in the bounds of not gonna happen. Probably would crash the game. Remember Warframe isn't a DAW, it can't handle that lmao. Maybe two octaves of that and it won't crash the game. Anything past that you'd basically have to reinstall.

[DJ_Vauban]

Eh, one can dream owo this might not be a song I made but who wouldn't love to use their own song to kill stuff or help others?

[BrapQueen]

Just now, DJ_Vauban said:

Eh, one can dream owo this might not be a song I made but who wouldn't love to use their own song to kill stuff or help others?

Ya I'd really enjoy at the very least playing the melody of one my songs whilst playing this frame.

[mindlord0013]

The Piano roll idea would be way too hard to program. There are reasons things are the way they are.

The music sequencer shown was pretty easy to figure out. As soon as I saw it I could tell it was a single bar of 4/4 divided into semi-quavers (sixteenth notes) at a moderate-slow bpm. Upon closer inspection, it gives us just short of a full octave to play with.

We know that the bard'frame will change the music based on ability usage, and it will be a smooth and seamless transition between different "songs". A single bar of 4/4 divided into semi-quavers is best suited for this. As much as I would love to have 4 bars to play around with, it brings up a tonne of problems.

For starters, we don't know how many songs we can create per bard'frame. If it's linked to ability usage that realistically means we could have 3-4 different songs. That's a fair bit of data to store as it is, let alone if the songs were 4 bars long.

A second problem is the transitioning betweens songs. I don't know how they're going to transition, but I imagine the most impactful method would be a hard change at the end of the bar, even queuing up songs based on ability usage. They could also do a smooth fade between the two tracks, as if they were being played simultaneously. This makes less of an impact, and could also get messy with ability spam. A piano roll like you suggest with variable bpm, lengths, etc. would only add to the problem.

Honestly, the current ui and sequencer design only needs 1 or 2 adjustments to make it more user friendly. Namely, curved lines running horizontally to distinguish the start of each beat. That and better sounding notes. Aside from that, I reckon you should play within the limitations set by the devs. It's there for a very good reason.

[Alcoholism]

One of the most important factors is the player dynamic, not so much how complex and unique you can make the sequencer mechanic.

For musically talented people who understand how music is composed, it will be a much easier learning curve and the "fun" part will speak for itself as you are already passionate about it.
For those who do not fall in this category it will be a much steeper learning curve, may push people to not bother trying (become frustrated with it) and the "fun" factor may not exist with people saying "I am not here to learn how to compose music, I'm here to play a game".

Don't get me wrong, I don't want something that is limited in use, but I don't want something overly complex that will take me hours to sequence whereas for someone more musically educated can do it in much less time.
It's a balancing act for sure, and looking at what they have it's a WIP - so I am hopeful they'll get that balance just right.

[naorussss]

Next update: Saints row's Dubstep gun.

[Carnage2K4]

I'd vote for Polyhymnia,  "the one of many hymns" , "the Muse of sacred poetry, sacred hymn, dance, and eloquence"

Edited November 6, 2016 by Carnage2K4

[HalfDarkShadow]

On 10/30/2016 at 1:25 AM, HalfDarkShadow said:

Though personally, some of the suggestions here like "Melody" or "Forte" is to me a bit....too expected? I mean sure if this was Warframe back in 2013, we can go with the obvious ones like the old Warframes (nothing wrong with them mind you) but these days it makes MMO classes look interesting and unique haha.

Again, nothing wrong with the older names and I do like some of them, but I'd prefer to not pick a name that's only surface-level and what some might argue, shallow.

Be it, it doesn't have to be convoluted, but I think actually sitting down and really thinking of something that's meaningful (like they have been) is much better way to go. I mean look at Chroma? Out of all the...."interesting" names a lot of the forum users were suggesting at the time, I believe don't hold a candlelight to what they went with lol.

As far what would I go with? Personally it depends on it's ability kit and where the influences of her aesthetics came from when they were designing her.
Other than Vetis, I've hear Auriar being mentioned which isn't too bad either.

Another interesting one would be the other (more modern) alternative word of saying the Greek name Lyris (not a fan of how Lyris sounds off the tounge, despite it being a female name), is Lyria. Which personally is what I would pick I suppose.

But knowing DE regardless, I'm sure they'll go with something meaningful!

TLDR; Lyria

Edited November 6, 2016 by HalfDarkShadow

[Helch0rn]

On 30.10.2016 at 8:15 PM, Zhoyzu said:

The process for obtaining new DC members is completely arbitrary and nets a significant amount of undesirables which devalues any input from DC and reduces DC influence to negligible. As of now DC is nothing more than a 12hr sneak peek and is no different that the regular forums or region chats. 

As of being a founder automatically makes all of your suggestions good. 

Back to topic:

I would call her Doro. 

No mythological ties. Just the name of the queen of metal. 

Edited November 6, 2016 by Helch0rn

[ShibuyaGG]

another crappy frame that i'll never use, the infested frame on the other hand looks worth a try.