Combat music is quite awful (moddable?)

[Multihog]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EHwOgHlub4
This is still in the game. What is this, a simple, repetitive rhythm and a couple of chords with the strings copy/pasted over 9000 times? How did this track pass QA? 0:59 especially is quite funny. It stays on that chord FOREVER; it's like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, when is this track moving somewhere, and then it never does. This track is like an intro that never progresses: it keeps repeating that same repetitive, lazy pattern throughout the track. This is just one of many tracks with the same issue of staticity. One of the tracks is only a lame drum beat with no tonality whatsoever (shown below), and the rest of the tracks are equally dull as well in their own ways, severely lacking in energy and failing to convey a sense of danger and pitched battle. There's one especially bad track, but sadly it's not on YouTube (yet) since it wasn't in the beta.

Example of a combat theme with a proper sense of danger, battle, and chaos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqcH4ooM6xs

An incredibly boring percussion-based track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZExvrY_tqKg

How to do a proper heavily percussion-based combat theme, esp 1:37:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkRgWU1FS3U

The worst is that this time the audio files are in some weird format, so they can't be easily replaced like in the first game (unless someone knows how to do it?) If I could, I'd mod these out in a heartbeat.

[cptcooolguy]

I agree with the first comparison, I am not a fan of that first track at all, the BG one is waaays aobve it imo. But I do like that second track, reminds me of the Troy song when Hector and Achillies fight. It's got intentsity and movement, but feels more personal, less chaotic. The total war song feels right for large scale, but this isn't large scale.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by cptcooolguy:

I agree with the first comparison, I am not a fan of that first track at all, the BG one is waaays aobve it imo.

Hell yeah. It makes me feel like I'm fighting for my life against some infernal monsters, whereas the PoE one makes me sleepy.

I think even PoE 1 had better music than 2. Sure, it sounded dry as hell (really, use some reverb) and somewhat amateurish, but at least this track was kind of decent, though it's an Icewind Dale theme ripoff at 0:42:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wkaSjmSTV0
This time around, the production is better, but the musical content is worse than PoE1, and it wasn't even all that good in that.

[Josch]

This is by far my biggest complain so far, the OST is insanely weak. Not only in the combat music department, the themes of the new locations aren't fitting as well. I mean it often sounds exactly like the Pillars 1 stuff (I think they even reused tracks from game 1) while this setting is supposed to convey a carribean mood? How does that make sense.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by Josch:

This is by far my biggest complain so far, the OST is insanely weak. Not only in the combat music department, the themes of the new locations aren't fitting as well. I mean it often sounds exactly like the Pillars 1 stuff (I think they even reused tracks from game 1) while this setting is supposed to convey a carribean mood? How does that make sense.

Yeah, I noticed the same. I've kind of lost faith in this composer.

PoE 1 OST was weak as well, and the only somewhat memorable themes were direct ripoffs of: LotR Shire music (Caed Nua), Oblivion (Defiance Bay, comparison below), one of the combat tracks (IWD theme, comparison below), and another one of the combat themes was almost directly from BG2. Maybe more. Only they were worse than the originals by far.

A couple of examples of the ripoffs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i381VcMpoMQ&t=0m54s at 0:54
is....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wkaSjmSTV0&t=0m41s ....at 0:41. Just compare how laughably worse the PoE one is compared to the epic IWD one, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irW3ycxpLDU
is...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-URrsISx-M

[starkmaddness]

Yea, some of the audio is so bad, I suspect there may be a bug? (Was super repetitive) I really hope that is the case, or someone needs to find a new profession.

There have been other times that it almost feels like two tracks are playing over each other. Again, I hope that is the case, as it is a discordant ♥♥♥♥ show.

[Honelith]

Finishing PoE1 before diving into PoE2 but this is a shame to read.

[Multihog]

Originally posted by R:

there are dozens of .wem audio converters. Its a rather common file format... Some are proprietary for their game, but even they should work if you have access to them.

Ah, I'll look into that then. I've just never seen nor heard of it before.

[[__h.stickeye_]]

bad combat music is just the humour man, dont you get it? Its like retro and humoury humour, like humour stuff