My ears!!

[Ston]

This has been an issue since CoH launched and I wouldn't be surprised if this has been suggested before.. But I'll bring it up again anyway:

Can we lower the maximum amount of targets that trigger sound FX? Or make it an option in settings?

If you've ever been in the middle of a group of enemies and used Lightning Ball, you know what I'm talking about. Even with the gameplay sound set to 1%, some powers will become extremely loud. 

 

Some powers, like Crowd Control, have very satisfying sound FX when hitting their target cap.. But I would rather lose that than have to endure the earrape of Lightning Ball again. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

Yes, pls. Touch of Fear and Soul Drain in Dark Melee suffer from the same. Wouldn't mind a cap on the visual FX either.

[MTeague]

I admit, from the title, I assumed it was the Destroyed Galaxy City intro, with the dude screaming about Blue Spectrum.

[Glacier Peak]

36 minutes ago, MTeague said:

I admit, from the title, I assumed it was the Destroyed Galaxy City intro, with the dude screaming about Blue Spectrum.

This!!!!

[srmalloy]

6 hours ago, Ston said:

If you've ever been in the middle of a group of enemies and used Lightning Ball, you know what I'm talking about. Even with the gameplay sound set to 1%, some powers will become extremely loud. 

When doing Montague Castaneda's "Cure the Lost" mission, doing it in Perez Park, where you can find a single lieutenant in a group of eight or nine minions, if you cure one, the rest will attack him. Sometimes all the minions will pull out shotguns and all fire at the same time; the sound of them all firing at once is physically painful.

[Six-Six]

You can mod your SFX to save your eardrums. I've installed some client-side mods that helped me enjoy the game more. Have a look here:
There's a quieter lightning powers, and one that I particularly enjoy a lot is the beam rifle edit. I believe a few don't work with the recent patches, so there's that.

 

[Solarverse]

Here is the problem with that. You have a lot of players who actually love that effect and find it to be an iconic part of the game. Take that away and you take away part of what makes this game so unique. We have already lost so many sounds that were once iconic to this game, you can find a list of those sounds in my sig. There are certain power sets that I will not even play anymore just because those sounds were removed.

However, there is good news. There is no reason why players who feel as you do can have what you want, without taking away from players such as myself. It just so happens (as @Six-Six has mentioned) that I create sound mods for this game and a good part of the reason why, is so that the Developers can stop deleting sounds for this game, or stop fading them out, or stop removing stacking effects. Every time they do this, it steals a large part of the enjoyment of the game from players like myself, so luckily there is a compromise here.

Just post the specific sounds you take issue with on the Mods thread listed in my sig and I'll see what I can whip up for you.

[TheZag]

I was just telling my friends last night how i didnt need to use my dark melee powers but we had alot of enemies so i used them anyway.

[srmalloy]

9 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Here is the problem with that. You have a lot of players who actually love that effect and find it to be an iconic part of the game. Take that away and you take away part of what makes this game so unique. We have already lost so many sounds that were once iconic to this game, you can find a list of those sounds in my sig.

I don't want the sounds removed; all I want is a volume cap for multiple instances of them. If ten Lost all whip out shotguns and fire at once, the sound effect does not need to be ten times as loud.

[Ston]

 

10 hours ago, Solarverse said:

Here is the problem with that. You have a lot of players who actually love that effect and find it to be an iconic part of the game. Take that away and you take away part of what makes this game so unique. We have already lost so many sounds that were once iconic to this game, you can find a list of those sounds in my sig. There are certain power sets that I will not even play anymore just because those sounds were removed.

 

What @srmalloy said. I don't have any problems with the sound FX of the powers against one target, but it becomes a problem when that gets multiplied. Even on 1% game volume, I'm surprised my headphones haven't blown out.

I still think a cap on sound FX instances would be better than a mod that provides quieter sounds. I do appreciate those exist, but I think they're a band-aid to a problem that can hopefully have an in-game solution implemented.

 

Off the top of my head, these are some of the top offenders when hitting their target cap:

- Lightning Ball

- Electric Fences

- Howling Twilight

- Stone Cages

- Foot Stomp

- Radiation Therapy 

- Energy Absorption 

- Nova

 

I think the problem is with the audio frequency of certain powers. Other powers like Healing Aura are much more subtle when hitting their target cap. But I think a blanket setting that puts a cap on sound FX multiplying would be great.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Ston

[Solarverse]

46 minutes ago, Ston said:

 

 

What @srmalloy said. I don't have any problems with the sound FX of the powers against one target, but it becomes a problem when that gets multiplied. Even on 1% game volume, I'm surprised my headphones haven't blown out.

I still think a cap on sound FX instances would be better than a mod that provides quieter sounds. I do appreciate those exist, but I think they're a band-aid to a problem that can hopefully have an in-game solution implemented.

 

Off the top of my head, these are some of the top offenders when hitting their target cap:

- Lightning Ball

- Electric Fences

- Howling Twilight

- Stone Cages

- Foot Stomp

- Radiation Therapy 

- Energy Absorption 

- Nova

 

I think the problem is with the audio frequency of certain powers. Other powers like Healing Aura are much more subtle when hitting their target cap. But I think a blanket setting that puts a cap on sound FX multiplying would be great.

 

I get you, and I have seen many powers lose that stacking affect and because of it I just can't play those sets even though I used to absolutely love those sets (looking at you Kinetics and Empathy) anymore. So I really hope they don't do that to other sets as well. I wish like hell that they would stop removing them and somehow make it an option instead. Sadly though, and I hate to say I'll take my ball and go home, but if they remove one more sound, I'll be forced to go play on a less populated server where they have not removed those sounds. That is something that I really don't want to do, but will if I must. It's that damn important to me. So hopefully, they can do what you want by way of an option instead of taking it away for everybody. This game has suffered the loss of a lot of great looking armor effects and a great deal of sound effects over the years and I just can't stand to lose anything else. I would love a server to reinstate all those sounds and stop taking them away. I don't know about blowing out speakers though, I play both my headphones and my speakers pretty damn loud and haven't lost any speakers yet, hehe. Anyway, hopefully the Devs can do this by way of option. I would TRULY hate to leave this server over it.

[Solarverse]

5 hours ago, srmalloy said:

I don't want the sounds removed; all I want is a volume cap for multiple instances of them. If ten Lost all whip out shotguns and fire at once, the sound effect does not need to be ten times as loud.

 

It's almost impossible to achieve the stacking sounds without making them louder. I have ran many tests on my own with this, it's simply not possible. However, I like it, it adds a feel of realism to me. Without those stacking sounds I honestly don't think I would have ever lasted longer than a month with this game. It was the one thing that I said, "Oh wow, that is really fricken awesome how they do that!" and it made the game feel so real. Without it, it loses that for me. And yes, I am sure you think I am being goofy, but you have to remember, I have been a sound guy my entire life. I have been in several metal bands in my life time, I have created special effects for many videos that people have made, I have created Symphony Orchestra music in which I have created sounds for. This piece just being one small example...
 

So sound is EXTREMELY important to me. As much as I love being on this server, I would literally walk away forever if another sound was to be removed from this game. I have kind of had enough of it, the Elec Field fading out even though I had a mod that gave it an extremely cool sound effect that was also much quieter, was my last straw. So hopefully the Devs can do this by making it an option rather than something that is forced on everyone, otherwise I already know what they will do, they will just hunt out every sound anyone has an issue with and take away the stacking effects and make everything fade out...and I do not say this as an "Or else!" but rather I say this because it's just how I feel, one more sound, and I'm gone. Really truly hope it doesn't come to that.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Solarverse

[MTeague]

I'm with @Solarverse on this one. In part, because I've heard these effects at max targets and..... never found them even remotely a problem?

Maybe it depends very greatly on one's hearing sensitivity.

 

If anything is done I would want it to be an OPTIONAL thing.

Ie, if a Preference is allowed for max effects, fine, as long as I can toggle it off, or as long as you have toggle it on. 

I do not require that other players hear exactly what I hear. But I would want to hear the sounds as they are now.

[Solarverse]

1 minute ago, MTeague said:

I'm with @Solarverse on this one. In part, because I've heard these effects at max targets and..... never found them even remotely a problem?

Maybe it depends very greatly on one's hearing sensitivity.

 

If anything is done I would want it to be an OPTIONAL thing.

Ie, if a Preference is allowed for max effects, fine, as long as I can toggle it off, or as long as you have toggle it on. 

I do not require that other players hear exactly what I hear. But I would want to hear the sounds as they are now.

 

You said it better than I did, thank you.

[Bill Z Bubba]

18 minutes ago, MTeague said:

I'm with @Solarverse on this one. In part, because I've heard these effects at max targets and..... never found them even remotely a problem?

 

I hate wearing headphones while I play but try to keep the volume at a decent level so as not to wake the wife at 3am. All is fine and dandy until I smack that spawn with crowd control and even my ears start bleeding, the wife wakes up, the dog starts barking, the cat's lookin at me like I'm more of a devil than I normally am...

 

Yes, dogs and cats ARE living together.

 

But I agree 100% that all changes like this should be something added to the options menu for easy disable/enable when at all possible.

[A Cat]

1 hour ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

I hate wearing headphones while I play but try to keep the volume at a decent level so as not to wake the wife at 3am. All is fine and dandy until I smack that spawn with crowd control and even my ears start bleeding, the wife wakes up, the dog starts barking, the cat's lookin at me like I'm more of a devil than I normally am...

 

Yes, dogs and cats ARE living together.

 

But I agree 100% that all changes like this should be something added to the options menu for easy disable/enable when at all possible.

I hope for your sake no one uses Howling Twilight around you.

[MTeague]

** Hami Raid wipes **

"Paging Doctor Howling Twilight!  Doctor Howling Twilight to surgery STAT!!"

[A Cat]

22 minutes ago, MTeague said:

** Hami Raid wipes **

"Paging Doctor Howling Twilight!  Doctor Howling Twilight to surgery STAT!!"

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[wjrasmussen]

Hold on a minute.  when did they add sound?

[ninja surprise]

I upvote this over 9000.

I often play with headphones and normally have the game volume set between 2% and 5%. And even then some of the max target hits are so loud I want to turn it down more.

 

But recently I reinstalled the game on a new computer, logged in and started running around with the default volume and music settings... I was alone in my room, figured it didn't matter if it was a bit loud. 

I was AMAZED at all the ambient noises and sounds happening in the game! I've never heard them because I have to have the volume so low to make the loudest sounds bearable. Like, to @Solarverse's point I had to give up most of the game's sounds so I could hear the few that I had to hear.

 

If I could turn off the decibel-exponential effect I'd be a happy camper.

 

What I'd prefer is a sort of echo effect at the same volume. Like, if I skip a rock and it bounces 10 times, the skip SFX isn't 10 times as loud it just happens 10 times. If I drop 10 bricks it sound like 10 things hitting, not one 1,000 lb thing hitting. I'd like it if Footstomp hits 10 critters it makes 10 quick PFLOMPs instead of one super duper loud KBASH!

 

So yeah, I'd love a client-side option to disable SFX quantity stacking so I could turn back on all the other SFX I'm missing.

Edited January 30, 2022 by ninja surprise

[srmalloy]

On 1/28/2022 at 1:23 PM, Solarverse said:

It's almost impossible to achieve the stacking sounds without making them louder. I have ran many tests on my own with this, it's simply not possible.

The problem I have is the one specific case of a bunch of the same SFX kicking off simultaneously. Getting louder with more stacks is fine, just make the volume increase nonlinear -- say, the volume is 1 plus the log of the number of copies of the SFX triggering at a particular time.

[Ston]

2 hours ago, ninja surprise said:

But recently I reinstalled the game on a new computer, logged in and started running around with the default volume and music settings... I was alone in my room, figured it didn't matter if it was a bit loud. 

I was AMAZED at all the ambient noises and sounds happening in the game! I've never heard them because I have to have the volume so low to make the loudest sounds bearable. Like, to @Solarverse's point I had to give up most of the game's sounds so I could hear the few that I had to hear.

 

I hadn't even thought of this! This a great point for this suggestion. I just loaded into a quiet map and turned the volume all the way up and it was definitely nice to hear all the subtle noises. Just shows that this game could use some major work when it comes to audio adjustments. To be fair though, I think that can be said about a lot of games.

 

But I think limiting the sound FX stacking would be the best place to start!

[SuggestorK]

On 1/28/2022 at 10:46 PM, Bill Z Bubba said:

 

Yes, dogs and cats ARE living together.

 

Mass Hysteria... get ur non licensed nuclear accelerators into gear and cross the streams 🙂 .

 

 

Edited January 31, 2022 by SuggestorK

[Mirinesse]

I will chime in - volume definitely needs adjusting - this is the ONLY game I have ever played that I play on volume at 1% - and 3% is too loud. While I watch or listen to something at the same time - I have to pick volume OFF or 1%, If I am playing and using discord on my headphones I have it at 1% and I need to turn discord voices up to 100-150%.

 

Maybe add a MASTER volume to lower all the other volumes? 🙂

[Black Zot]

One of the reasons I rarely play melee is it means being at ground zero when a saturated Foot Stomp goes off.  At volume settings where any other game would be inaudible, THAT effect has the potential to get me in trouble with the neighbors.  I might as well set off a bomb on my desk.

 

The game should have launched with the option to turn that shit off.  There's no excuse not to have it now, umpteen years of development later.