[Update 20] Octavia Feedback Megathread

[Kaotyke]

I've been asking around for opinions on how the music making was going and got a couple of suggestions for future sound packs:

Piano

Guitar High notes

Violin

Erhu

Low tune  One Woman Wail

[FoxsongHD]

I feel that octavias music is lacking due to its restriction in speed. You can't make the music go faster or slower which limits it more than I would like personally.

[Celthric317]

The piano part scares me though, as you can seriously make some noisy stuff out of that. So far all Octavia's I've met have made either national anthems or screeching sounds.

[Raruna]

Personally I only really wish you had some real control over where Resonator goes. I guess just recast it when I need to, or just keep following it, but given the fact that Amp is static I'd have to keep recasting it.

[FireSegment]

as i recall from either a devstream or second stream, the reason they rather not have all the note is to limit the combination that hurt the ear. Bard frame also already got an earlier version teased and im pretty sure she got more note back then. Anyhow, DE made up their mind, i don't see them change it anytime soon 

[Rawbeard]

it is limited so derps like me could potenially create something that resembles music. sorry for you real music folks :( I feel an "advanced" option might be interesting to see in the future, but the effort might not be worth implementing 

Or change her name to Pentatonia, I guess

Edited March 31, 2017 by Rawbeard

[Kaotyke]

53 minutes ago, Celthric317 said:

The piano part scares me though, as you can seriously make some noisy stuff out of that. So far all Octavia's I've met have made either national anthems or screeching sounds.

At the same time, many good pieces of music use a piano. Its a risk, but Octavia itself was a risk too.

[polarity]

6 hours ago, NeithanDiniem said:

• Not likely simply because the monitization bit you mentioned isn't that strong since one could always just swap out songs they own with ones they have stored. The biggest part of the monitization of songs is letting people keep their favorites. Not enough players change their location to really maintain the profitability of the system.

The monetization as it is, is going to be practically non-existent.  I sure as hell am not going to be spending money on extra instrument packs and 'song' slots, when those so-called songs are limited to the same 4 bars repeated over and over, and I'm sure plenty of others feel the same way once they see the ridiculous limitations.  Octavia is a joke, and a massive let down.  It was a great idea but as soon as marketing got their hands on it, they completely gutted it.

Monetizing the maximum playable length of songs would be a far better incentive to buy upgrades, because in that case the alternative would be being stuck with these stupid 4 bar long 'songs' (although if there was a pattern sequencer, I'd suggest the basic package be 16 bars using 4 different patterns).

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• Longer songs isn't that likely, as increasing playable song length requires the largest size to be the limit for saved data for each song, which means longer serials for saving the song. It also messes up synchronization that DE has been quite driven on maintaining. More slots is probably a definite.

Rubbish.  You don't end up with a fixed data size just because you changed the format of the data.  Synchronization has to be the second most hated thing about Octavia after the annoyance of having the same 4 bars repeated endlessly.  Even with the same BPM and in the same key, two Octavias in a mission sounds like crap, and you spend the whole time trying to avoid each other (and the only way harmonies are ever going to sound good is if people get to pick the 'songs' they play so they work together, and they're far less likely to do that if it means having to wipe one of their slots to play someone else's stuff).  Unfortunately we'd be damn lucky to get DE to abandon that stupid idea, considering how stubbornly they cling to bad ideas.
 

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• The mandachord has the ability to have sections copied and pasted, so it sort of has some of this that you are already requesting. Not too sure on how much DE can implement into the game with what the Engine can do, so that one they'd have to go on about.

Whoop-de-do, I can copy one of my 4 bars into one of the others.  That's going to save me so much time, what with there being a whole 4 of them </sarcasm>.  And I'd suggest you at least learn to program before theorising about what game engines are capable of.  I've already seen far more complex music players built into games, like how Unreal Tournament 99's music format was .xm files, as made in FastTracker2.  A DOS program.

 

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• Im assuming that instead of a ring you are suggesting more of a single line. This kind of breaks away from its design a bit, but could work yes. The main thing this relies on to be a logical change though is longer songs.

No.  I'm suggesting adapting the ring format so it's capable of displaying a greater number of patterns, without making any major changes to the existing visual design.  The pattern editor could be added as an outer ring at the top, without needing any major changes to the way the interface works, besides having an option added to the menu on the right to switch it between showing the full song, the patterns in sequence, and the temporary test sequence.  To access the pattern sequencer you just scroll up above the top line of the step-sequencer, and then you click repeatedly on its cells to set which patterns they play.

 

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• This one relies on allowing songs to be longer, which has problems as further above.

The only problem that arises from long songs is storing the data, and that's only a problem because DE insists on having everything on their own servers, where they incur the costs of hosting it, and because they seem incapable of coming up with any better way of monetizing the game than selling us that storage space (and cosmetics).

The thing is, if we had longer songs, a playlist, and client-side storage for the main library, they could then reduce the base number of songs down to just 2 or three to allow for more patterns/longer songs (with a pattern sequencer you could quadruple the length of songs, using the same number of patterns, and stored data, by repeating them).

Effectively they'd be selling us the ability to play longer songs, rather than the space needed to store them (which is so small it's utterly ridiculous, as is the cost.  16x13x4 BITS, plus a couple of bytes for the track volumes, and to specify which instrument pack to use for each track.  For the amount of data you're getting for your plat, a clan logo is an absolute steal in comparison).

If there was a website with hundreds of songs on it that could be imported, yet most of them needed you to buy upgrades in order to play them in full, then that would give people far more encouragement to buy upgrades, than the ability to chose from more 4 bar loops, or different instrument packs for their 4 bar loops (I refuse to call them songs, when there are radio commercial jingles that are longer pieces of music).  I'd rather spend my money on a real album, and play that with Winamp, than waste money on pointless mandachord upgrades (as for the writing-your-own-songs bit, Fastracker2 in DOSBox would be way more capable, and completely free).
 

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Something I would add to this list, however, is the option to hold a note to not just be a single "beat." This would only be possible in the lower 2 bars, not the bass. This way you could hold a note, allowing a little more freedom for the song but sacrificing a bit of the ability to activate a skill (maybe held notes have a longer activation time, but doesn't last the full length of the note). UI for this would involve something like click-dragging over a row of slots to select how long to hold a note on the bar. I'd imagine it would be reasonable to assume they would put a limit to how long a note can be held.

And if the majority of storage was moved client-side, there is no reason an effects layer couldn't be added, over the existing notes layer.  The nature of music in this kind of format means that it takes up very little space anyway.  The largest part being the samples.

 

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Serial-wise this shouldn't be that difficult, since the code for held notes could have a wrapper code at the start and end that marks the ends of the held note (like brackets, or parenthesis around the notes if you will), and they would always be made in pairs. The serial system would work just fine with something like that.

I get the impression you don't really understand what serialization is.  What you're describing sounds more like markup.

 

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The main problem to this idea though is a lot of the notes would need to be re-recorded to allow for holding the note, or variants would need to be made.

Samples could be turned into 'instruments', where a single cycle at the end of the sample is looped over to extend it indefinitely, and the effects layer could be used to apply an envelope affecting volume and duration different from the default.

Edited March 31, 2017 by polarity

[ChemicalHorse]

Is there any reason why this shouldn't be a thing? People make original compositions and sometimes these are shared, I feel a little note on the [Song] stating the original composer would be greatly appreciated and a nice touch

[Ajreil]

If you load up one of your loadouts that you got from a [song] and start modifying it, one of two things has to happen:

• You are now the original composer, which means this system isn't foolproof

• The original person is still listed as the original composer, even though he probably isn't.

The first option is obviously the better of the two. It's worth noting that people would be able to steal songs, though.

[ChemicalHorse]

Interesting. Perhaps if you as a composer were able to mark a [song] as unmodifiable? Would this cause more problems?

[Taronium]

People shouldn't be too concerned about such things, if you asked me... it's quite silly. Only interesting it would be, if there were some sort of links to a persons archive or so...could be fun.

[Taronium]

First of all: Thanks DE for sneaking in yet some more creative outlets for players. I think, that is wonderful!

Suggestion for MandaChord sequencer: ACCENTS. Would be awesome, if you could use RMB on notes to set an accented note, similar to the old Roland 808 type of sequencers, you know. It shouldn't be too shocking to implement, but would add a whole new dimension to compositions without going overboard.

[Fallen_Echo]

2 hours ago, Raruna said:

Personally I only really wish you had some real control over where Resonator goes. I guess just recast it when I need to, or just keep following it, but given the fact that Amp is static I'd have to keep recasting it.

The resonator auto targets enemies who arent effected by it. When you recast it the charm effect goes away and reapplies itself in the base range around cast.

[Atheeas]

Pipe organ and wind instrument sound packs would be pretty cool as well.

[dan.io.wal]

I would like smoother synths overall... the ones that they have I don't enjoy that much.

[Taronium]

It's still really crude, as amazing as it is that there is such a thing like the Mandachord now. But to me the sounds, especially bass, are a bit too soft in the attack and have a pretty long release. The quality of them remind me somehow to old Amiga times, hahaha, which is a bit harsh, but well... really, it's almost like you wouldn't expect a hi-tech game like Warframe to have such 1990's style audio solution, while visually it's awesome!

I understand the dilemma, that's for sure, and it's truly ambitious. I think, I'd be happy, if there were just an ACCENT option to at least introduce one layer of dynamics, which would likely make it less disturbing.

Dream-come-true would be the ability to "hold" notes to play the whole sample, which otherwise would have a tighter release. This, too, would increase the potential a lot without becoming too scary.

Anyway, great potential, kudos to DE's bravery and thanks for that piece of extra fun! NOW just a few price specials for them crude soundsets, because 50 is a bit steep, considering. Anyway...

Edited March 31, 2017 by Taronium

[Taronium]

My feedback on Octavia goes actually not as bad. Admittedly, I first thought she was going to be some sort of April Fools, but after going through the somewhat pleasurable trouble of putting her together, I find her enjoyable to play. The whole Ability 3 thing with moving in the rhythm to get a certain boost is really a bit awkward to me and feels kind of contrived, making me (at least) stare confused at the percentage numbers in the upper right corner, hoping I got it going and then...eh... just going with what ever seems to have happened. It feels a bit flimsy. Not to mention that some neat rhythms make me feel like moving in a different groove then hoping to hit the first beat all the time, hehehe...

But, yeah, she's got way more potential than I would've thought and making the little songs is a blast. I'm hoping for some minor improvements there, though, which I've posted about already, but eh... setting accents and the ability to hold notes, which otherwise then should have a tight release. These two things could make it quite brilliant. The look of the GUI is gorgeous and fun!

Altogether: No April Fools! Good Fun! Training my challenges with political correctness and making me giggle about myself, playing this game! I mean, I was giggling before at times, but this one really is forcing a good sense of humor.

[achromos]

9 hours ago, ChemicalHorse said:

Interesting. Perhaps if you as a composer were able to mark a [song] as unmodifiable? Would this cause more problems?

Wouldn't stop people from Screenshotting and creating a "New" Version.

[ChemicalHorse]

37 minutes ago, achromos said:

Wouldn't stop people from Screenshotting and creating a "New" Version.

That's alright, there are always ways for people to cheese things like that. Have to be a pretty wicked tune for them to bother with that though I imagine haha.

[-WF-Monarch]

This post is both an edit and an apology to DE. In a previous post, I stated that Octavia's RESONATOR skill was not working properly. I thought it was suppose to draw fire, but after putting a 3rd forma into her and checking ability stats, I saw it's descriptions states it CHARMS enemies into following it. I apologize, DE. The edit is this: MALLET is suppose to draw fire, which it does by itself even with it being poorly most of the time. Yet when the MALLET is combined with RESONATOR it does NOT draw fire as it's description states. This needs to be fixed. Having to throw MALLET (let's say with 20 seconds of duration) and having to wait and HOPE it takes fire then popping a RESONATOR after so many seconds diminishes bot the effectiveness, and usefulness, of the combo.

 

 

EDIT/SIDE QUESTION: Was Limbo's Rift Walk passive now being affected by Nullifiers a bug and is it going to be fixed, or was the ability to use his passive without Nullifiers affecting it the bug? After rework I was happy to see that his passive was NOT affect by Nullifiers as it made reviving players in "Corpus Match Gone To S#&amp;&#036;" match useful and it was really nice, but after a hotfix they started pulling him from his passive Rift Walk. I searched patchnotes, threads, etc but never found an answer or any developer mention of it. I'm also asking here because I noticed his thread was locked, or at least it was.

 

Another issue: I just noticed while in Heiracon that if I throw out MALLET to try and get damage taken and dealt back, throwing out a RESONATOR cancels out the damage output from the MALLET I.E. MALLET was pumping out over 2K damage but once I tossed out RESONATOR the damage output dropped to 12-189 depending on if there were Disrupters. The damage is the damage from RESONATOR it's self. So not only does MALLET cease to draw fire when USED with RESONATOR, it also has it's damage output canceled from what I saw in Heiracon. I never noticed this before until I put damage counters back on.

Edited April 1, 2017 by -WF-Monarch
New Issue

[TaylorsContraction]

I'm not a musician, but I find the 4 measures, or whatever those 4 sections are, too short to make something that doesn't become annoying very quickly. It doesn't allow for enough variation in the music, to a point that I just stop using her abilities eventually. The issue is that some of her abilities require a musical component so I can't just have a "no-notes" mallet. At the same time, the 4 measure (I realize I may be using wrong temrinology here) is baked into the UI Q___Q so changing that won't be a small feat. One suggestion that was made is creating a playlist that will link individual songs, so if ppl want a longer song they had to use 2 song slots for it, or more.

 

Anyone else feel similarly?

As an aside I agree that some way for fellow players to mute ally octavia's or force them to play the default song would be a nice option as well.

[Marrra]

Ok, so my thoughts: 

Most of the issues I've had with Octavia have been brought up in previous pages. I haven't read all 19 pages, but there's a lot of people echoing each other so the problems with gameplay seem pretty obvious. I'll just make a list of my major points.

• For the love of all that is holy, PLEASE give us two extra sound option sliders - one for our own Octavia music and one for everyone else's. 
• Having to hit beats to receive buffs is problematic when ping can be such an issue for those of us playing together from all over the world.
• Fully reworking the Mandachord system to change it to use a full octave in each section would obviously be a lot of work and unlikely to happen. But at the very least I'd like:
  • The ability to change the tempo of the music. If it was done as a flat tempo to try and keep the music from Octavias playing together in sync and not terrible, with people out there making god-awful sounding songs anyway the attempt to make things sound better is moot (and can be avoided by having the option to mute other Octavias in your game). If it's so that everyone is on the same footing whether you can create music in the system or use pregenerated song, then make sure there's premade songs at a variety of bpm to choose from.
  • Being able to extend notes, either by a toggle option on the note (such as press once, add the note, press twice, extend the note, press 3rd time, remove the note) or by adding the ability to highlight a section of notes and choosing an option to link them together to extend the note for that duration.
  • More variety in instruments. As I've seen mentioned by many people, all of the instrument packs sound similarly synthesized. It's a major disappointment after buying all of them that for a lot of the music we want to make, there's no suitable instrument available. This applies not just to the Resonator and Metronome sections, but also the Mallet - most of them sound so alike it's pointless getting additionals.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Marrra

[Brakhai]

On regard of the Metronome ability: After playing around with her for some time, I think it would be sensible to just remove the buff % resetting on off beat action. That way you can just normally fight and your actions will trigger the buffs eventually.

[Brakhai]

3 hours ago, Marrra said:

Ok, so my thoughts: 

Most of the issues I've had with Octavia have been brought up in previous pages. I haven't read all 19 pages, but there's a lot of people echoing each other so the problems with gameplay seem pretty obvious. I'll just make a list of my major points.

• For the love of all that is holy, PLEASE give us two extra sound option sliders - one for our own Octavia music and one for everyone else's. 
• Having to hit beats to receive buffs is problematic when ping can be such an issue for those of us playing together from all over the world.
• Fully reworking the Mandachord system to change it to use a full octave in each section would obviously be a lot of work and unlikely to happen. But at the very least I'd like:
  • The ability to change the tempo of the music. If it was done as a flat tempo to try and keep the music from Octavias playing together in sync and not terrible, with people out there making god-awful sounding songs anyway the attempt to make things sound better is mute (and can be avoided by having the option to mute other Octavias in your game). If it's so that everyone is on the same footing whether you can create music in the system or use pregenerated song, then make sure there's premade songs at a variety of bpm to choose from.
  • Being able to extend notes, either by a toggle option on the note (such as press once, add the note, press twice, extend the note, press 3rd time, remove the note) or by adding the ability to highlight a section of notes and choosing an option to link them together to extend the note for that duration.
  • More variety in instruments. As I've seen mentioned by many people, all of the instrument packs sound similarly synthesized. It's a major disappointment after buying all of them that for a lot of the music we want to make, there's no suitable instrument available. This applies not just to the Resonator and Metronome sections, but also the Mallet - most of them sound so alike it's pointless getting additionals.

This. So much this.