Overly Loud Sound Effects

[mypurplescissors]

I've noticed the sound effects of certain powers are EXTREMELY loud compared to everything else.  The one that made me really notice is I made a dual blades character and the sound effects of the blades hitting was so loud it hurt my ears compared to the rest of the sound effects of the game.

[RikOz]

One thing I've noticed is that CoX's sound level seems to be completely disconnected from my computer's overall sound level settings. Specifically, it's louder than any other sound source on my computer.

 

For contrast, World of Warcraft's sound levels seem to be well-integrated with my computer's overall volume settings. So if I had, say, Spotify turned all the way up, and WoW's sound turned all the way up, and had both going at once, the two things would be approximately the same volume. I could then adjust the volume of one or the other to get the balance I wanted between the two, and then use the volume knob on my speakers to control the overall level.

 

But in CoX, if I turn the game's volume all the way up and also have Spotify turned all the way up, CoX's sound will completely bury Spotify. So I have to run with the Sound FX Volume slider dropped all the way down to 20%, while leaving Spotify turned all the way up, just to get some balance between the two.

 

And yeah, I agree, some power sets are dramatically louder than others. It would be lovely if, at some point, our devs could do some sort of balancing pass on the various sound FX, as well as how the game's sound interacts with system sound.

[TheZag]

i have the game set to 5% to bring it to an appropriate level.  Hitting several enemies at once with an AoE will stack the sound effect as well making it loud.  But in that case im ok with it on my dark melee because it lets my team know i just wrecked the enemies like a boss.

[Stormwalker]

11 hours ago, TheZag said:

i have the game set to 5% to bring it to an appropriate level.  Hitting several enemies at once with an AoE will stack the sound effect as well making it loud.  But in that case im ok with it on my dark melee because it lets my team know i just wrecked the enemies like a boss.

 

This is the root cause of the problem right here.  There's no limit (well, technically there is one, I think, but it's way too high) to how many times the same sound can be played simultaneously.  So, if you hit 12 targets with an AoE, it plays the sound on top of itself 12 times.  If 10 Nemesis Jaegers turn and fire at you simultaneously, it plays the sound on top of itself 10 times.  This results in absurd volume, way out of whack with the rest of the game.

 

And this is why I hardly ever team, because I have some sound sensitivity issues and teaming invariably leaves me with a headache.

[Marine X]

You might want to load COH Modder as it includes a bunch audio mods courtesy of @Solarverse, if the most offensive sounds to you are among the ones he has modded you can simply load them into the game. This also allows easy install and updating of VidiotsMaps. A link is below to the forum post.

 

 

[Stormwalker]

21 minutes ago, Marine X said:

You might want to load COH Modder as it includes a bunch audio mods courtesy of @Solarverse, if the most offensive sounds to you are among the ones he has modded you can simply load them into the game. This also allows easy install and updating of VidiotsMaps. A link is below to the forum post.

 

 

 

I can attest at least that the Lightsaber SFX mod helps for DB, if you can justify it (lots of energy blade options in weapon customization).  It's still loud when you hit with an AoE, but it's a much less harsh sound and so doesn't set off my sound sensitivity the same way.

[Herotu]

As Stormwalker states, it's an engine problem, not the individual sound effects.

 

Having said that, many of the default sounds annoy me anyway, so I've replaced them. 

[Marine X]

2 minutes ago, Herotu said:

As Stormwalker states, it's an engine problem, not the individual sound effects.

Understood, I just figured since I can't help cure the disease, might as well try to help treat some of the symptoms.

[JayboH]

16 hours ago, TheZag said:

i have the game set to 5% to bring it to an appropriate level.  Hitting several enemies at once with an AoE will stack the sound effect as well making it loud.  But in that case im ok with it on my dark melee because it lets my team know i just wrecked the enemies like a boss.

I have it set to 1%!

 

I've said it elsewhere:  if you want an example of pure ridiculousness, just take a fully upgraded Necro mastermind with all the pets and enter a door.  Since it re-summons pets and re-trains them every time all at once, I've described the sound as the noise of a thousand suns exploding.  It's crazy loud.

[Stormwalker]

On the subject of sound modding - if you set your volume way down (mine's at 15%), be sure to grab one of the mods that makes the glowie sound louder so you can actually hear the things!

[Marine X]

Also keep in mind that the sound mods are Client Side, meaning you can load sound mods for powers that you don't have, but bother you when playing with others that do, such as Foot stomp or Fault. It only affects what you hear, others will still hear the normal audio unless they install the mods.

[Hedgefund]

I was playing my Necro MM with headphones recently' with sound at 1 entering doors was absolutely ear splitting.  I'll try to use the sound editing utility to change that, it's ridiculous.  My other MMs aren't that bad.

[JayboH]

On 7/9/2022 at 3:22 PM, Hedgefund said:

I was playing my Necro MM with headphones recently' with sound at 1 entering doors was absolutely ear splitting.  I'll try to use the sound editing utility to change that, it's ridiculous.  My other MMs aren't that bad.

Yes, that's what I was trying to tell people.  People thought fulcrum shift was bad, try doing this and you will see what we are talking about.

[srmalloy]

17 hours ago, JayboH said:

Yes, that's what I was trying to tell people.  People thought fulcrum shift was bad, try doing this and you will see what we are talking about.

When you're doing the "Cure the Lost" mission at the end of Montague Castaneda's arc, you can encounter something like this. If you go to Perez Park to cure the Lost there, you'll find that when you cure one member of a spawn, the rest will whip out their weapons and attack the newly-cured civilian (who is immune to their attacks). If you find a spawn with eight or nine minions around a lieutenant or boss, then hit the leader, sometimes the cloud of minions will all pull out shotguns in perfect synchronization, then all fire at once; the stacked shotgun sound can be actively painful.

[Stormwalker]

4 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

When you're doing the "Cure the Lost" mission at the end of Montague Castaneda's arc, you can encounter something like this. If you go to Perez Park to cure the Lost there, you'll find that when you cure one member of a spawn, the rest will whip out their weapons and attack the newly-cured civilian (who is immune to their attacks). If you find a spawn with eight or nine minions around a lieutenant or boss, then hit the leader, sometimes the cloud of minions will all pull out shotguns in perfect synchronization, then all fire at once; the stacked shotgun sound can be actively painful.

 

Another really good way to demonstrate this effect is to take a character with a stealth ability to an x8 Nemesis mission and find a pack with a bunch of Jaegers, then attack something so you drop out of stealth.  They will all turn and fire at you in unison.  The resulting instance of More Dakka is incredibly loud.  I encounter this on my Energy Melee/Energy Aura scrapper anytime I fight Nemesis because of Energy Cloak.

[Michiyo]

This is fixed in the Page 4 beta.  Sounds don't stack like they currently do.

[Stormwalker]

51 minutes ago, Michiyo said:

This is fixed in the Page 4 beta.  Sounds don't stack like they currently do.

 

Really?  I may have to download the Beta client just to try this out.

 

EDIT: You're right!  I only hope they changed this on purpose and it's not an accident, because this would be the best change ever for me.  I'll actually be able to join teams again!

Edited July 13, 2022 by Stormwalker

[Michiyo]

Yes, it was specifically fixed, it's even in the beta patch notes.

[Stormwalker]

1 minute ago, Michiyo said:

Yes, it was specifically fixed, it's even in the beta patch notes.

 

Yeah, I see it now, somehow I missed it when I looked over them previously.  Thanks for pointing it out to me.  This is the greatest fix ever.