Feedback: Power Sound effects

Hey Folks,

Our resident sound expert is looking for some focused feedback regarding the sound specifically as it applies to various powers. We’re looking to create a couple larger lists so that we can address items that could use improvement over a long period of time, so this is your chance to give feedback on sounds that have issues or you feel could use significant improvement. We’ll take this list and use it as the basis of our own investigation into any sound related issues in the game.

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Feedback is important to our development process, there are two types of feedback and both are helpful although some give us more insight and are more easily adapted into game changes.

Objective Feedback: Objective feedback is based upon what you as a user see or experience that other users may also see and experience. This feedback usually can be replicated easily as it involves facts and unbiased opinions. Example: When using the base editor items are sometimes getting caught in columns or pillars.

Subjective Feedback: Subjective feedback is based upon how you feel or experience the game as yourself. This experience may not necessarily be replicated because it is based on feeling and emotion. Subjective feedback is important to us but it is usually helpful if more information is present to describe what and why you feel the way you do. Example: I like the way the graphics look on my shield animation it gives me the feeling of being truly super-powered.

1st after red name!..........
Subjective Feedback= Some of the sonic attacks sounding more like someone screeming. Feel kinda silly sounding like a train or something. If possible based on their sex, or possibly animal roars for the folks with beast type toons.
The new kinetic attacks sound like jet fighters taking off. Not sure either way if its really good or bad yet.

Objective Feedback= The volume levels seem to be different for different powers. I have at times had to readjust the volume because a new person joins the team and their power has a rather loud effect compared to all the other sounds that had been going off prior to them.

Subjective Feedback:

The Sonic Blast set was extremely disappointing to me when it was introduced. I expected a set of sonic screams and roars, and while Shout fits the bill, we mostly got odd NES-esque effects and what I consider to be a totally inexplicable wolf-howl.

I'm sure plenty of people would be upset if the sounds were replaced, but if you ever have the option to customize sounds like you can customize animations, this is the first set I'd like to see that work with. Specifically, it would be nice to have a male scream/shout/roar set and a female scream/shout/roar set.

Honestly, I know anything of this sort is highly unlikely, but it's the only sound-based issue I have, so that's my feedback.

Edit: Yeah, what Elord said, and he reminded me that I preferred the original Kinetic Melee sounds from Beta.

Subjective/Objective:

Glowie/Zowie sound and visual effects need to be more pronounced.

Liking the fluorescent buzz of Tunnel lighting

I would like to see a little audio to match the visual NPC dialogue cues.

Can we get some way to shut off sounds for individual powers, even if it just affects ourselves and not everyone else? I know it can be done by putting empty files with certain names in some folder but a way to do it in-game would be nice. As a precursor to customizable sounds, perhaps. A checkbox next to the power in the costume generator would be fine.

Sonic Attacks & Sonic Resonance: I generally like these sounds, but it would be nice if they were more consistent. Some sound artificial, some sound bestial, and some sound like an adrogynous person yelling. Together, they don't fit any one theme as easily as other sets. Not to mention some of them include high-pitched effects which can be a little ear-splitting.

Kinetic Melee: Anyone that was in Beta for GR knows I don't like the current sounds and much preferred the original sounds (for anyone curious, the original sounds can be heard in that PAX video that showed KM a loooong time ago). The current effects sound like racecars or jets taking off, and don't go with the visuals of the powers at all. It makes me more than a little sad that we ended up with these sounds, from what I saw, in order to please a minority of players that needed to hear an explosion everytime their fists hit an enemy, and then when the majority requested the original sounds back, we were told it was too close to release to change them again.

Trickshooter's Characters | @Trickshooter @Brightside

• Make the demons from Demon Summoning not roar so often.
• Lower the volume on their roar

Objective Feedback: Broken 3D Sound for users of Creative Alchemy. Thread on the topic exists here: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...ighlight=sound

Subjective Feedback: Sounds I've found so annoying that I had to replace them with a file of dead silence: Energy Melee background hum associated with all EM attacks. Peacebringer background whine associated with all PB attacks.

Subjective Feedback: The Super Strength set lacks the percussive impact needed to suggest the raw power the set should have. Specific example: KO Blow. The "whoosh" lead in should be downplayed quite a bit from where it is now and the actual impact should be more 'crisp' with deeper bass and a little bit of 'crunch'.

Objective Feedback: Player footsteps sound different on different surfaces. Enemy footsteps seem to always sound the same.

Suggestion: It would be nice if hostages that have to be rescued had an audio cue/sound effect.


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Subjective Feedback:

I love the sounds for the Electric Blast and Manipulation Powers! ZAP ZAP!!

Demons are loud and persistent. Maybe some adjustment on their volume and/or the frequency of their howling would be a good thing.

I would love to seen some fresh sounds for the blasting powersets. Specifically the fire/electricity and also the dark ones (I'd love to see a whole new set of dark visuals but that's for another topic). Please could you take a look at the sounds for the dark toggles and also some of the more popular pool powers like... hasten.

That's all I can think of right now

The new Burn for blasters has an odd sound with it that just doesn't seem to make sense to me.

I also agree on the Sonic sets

I do agree with Liquid as well... the ability to customize the power's sound as we do the colors would be fantastic.

Something else I would love would be the ability to change our character voices (like the jump or the taunt sounds). Have five or six different female voices and five or six different male voices.

I too would like the old Kinetic Melee sounds back or an option to pick one or the other - like how we have visual customization, somehow work it so we have sound customization too.

I'd really enjoy seeing (hearing?) more screaming, yelling and *laughing* sounds for Sonic powers.

I also agree that the demons from Demon Summoning should not be as vocal nor as loud as they are. They roar entirely too often for my taste.

Real taunts, no burping.

Maybe create a large number of options for various voice types with check style options so you an pick which ones you want to cycle through. (I know, that's interface stuff and it's always more work, but it'd be really nice.)

Normalize the sound levels across the powersets. Some powersets blast my speakers off the shelf while others I can barely hear.

Demon summoning; please, oh please make them not roar so often. With sugar on top even.

Glowies/Zowies; when the sound volume was reduced back many issues ago to make them not quite so loud through the walls, they went too soft with it. Now at times I have to be right on top of one before I can hear it. Please increase the volume slightly.

Give us an option to turn off personal power sounds such as Practised Brawler. I really hate soloing while hearing Vroom, Vroom, Vroom for hours on end. Just one example. Arctic fog with the foghorn is another annoying one. I would love to be able to turn those off just for myself. On others it doesn't bother me, I can always move away out of the effect range.

Wentworths/Black Market; I would love to see this become a power free and sound effect free area.

I would love to see some of the Giant Monsters and AV's actually say something during the fight. Give them a voice. Even just one or two sound bites that get triggered at a HP level would be cool.

Thanks for asking for feedback.

1. WS human form toggles have an extremely painful high pitch screech when they turn on. Fortunately it only lasts a couple seconds.

2. Demons roar is louder than is necessary and more frequent than is reasonable.

3. A revamp of sonic sounds would make a lot of sense with animation customization coming. Would be great to choose between vocal sounds and pew pew sounds depending on the source location of the power.

@SpaceNut - My 50s, AE arcs and current projects at ParagonWiki

Agree with a majority on KM sounds , wish there was a way to turn it down or off without turning my volume down

Demons are too loud and I dread having one on my team , tone down the screams please

Could we perhaps in the future get laser sounds added for DP ? Or is this the wrong place to ask for that ?

OBJECTIVE:
First and foremost, lets find a way to maybe change the sound when you get a your first initial "tell" message. Normally, I keep my chat window minimized as to not interfere with the action at hand. Otherwise you cannot hear the "ding" when you have your own sound effects going in the background. I have missed many team invites because I never heard the "ding" sound. Not sure what this can be replaced with when getting initial tells so we can hear them better? Maybe even a pop-up message box in its place on the initial tell to let you know that you have a message, not sure if this would help? I say "initial" tells only because when you are on a team, the normal chat "beeps" are fine since you are already viewing the messages. I've added this one in the Objective section since I have posted request on this before and others have agreed on this suggestion.

Second, I would have to agree with others on the frequency and maybe volume of the screams for the MM's with Demon Summoning. I have my own and even I get annoyed sometimes at the roaring sounds that some of my pets make. Either less frequency or lower the pitch or screams they make might help.

SUBJECTIVE:
Not sure if this has been addressed since the past few updates. On my level 50 Duel/Elec Blaster, I originally had the Lightning Field for a secondary power, which when tuned on, would make this annoying crackling sound that was way too overpowering on my other powersets. It got so bad that I had to respec out of it and dump it. I even did a posting on it in these forums wanting to find a way to either turn that sound off or find a way to minimize the sound but because the sound effect volume controls only work on all your powers as a whole, I didn't want to lose the effects of my other powers. Also, I was happy to notice within the past few issues that Super Speed used to be as bad with the constant humming when this power was turned on. Now SS only makes that sound on the initial toggle on then goes quiet which was a good idea.

Kinetic Melee sound effects. I just recently started up my second Scrapper a KM/SD and this is the first time I got to hear the effects of KM. As some have stated, that it sounds like a jet taking off. I kind of like the effect so far being that it seems to work with the visual effects versus maybe another sound that might be "clanky" or slow. Of course, the jury is still out since GR is still in its baby stages and new things are learned everyday.

Subjective Feedback:
The current taunt options just don't work for me, they sound like a troll after too much superadine while lying in huddle in the corner of cave rather than something inspiring, brave, and challenging.

pretty much all of the looped sound toggles need treatment like hasten/superspeed - turning on, and quiet after that

Customization options would be outstanding (and I know probably beyond the scope of the request), but some things that occur to me:

• Sonic with mournful howls or musical inspired options
• Mysterious or mystical sound options for a variety of powers... (how would a Dr. Strange power blast sound differently than an Iron Man blast?)
• mechanical punching sounds for our armored/robotic characters

Peacebringers, at least in human form, need a pass. All of their attacks are accompanied by a high pitched sound... which winds up being almost non stop when you get a couple attacks going in a row.

It was giving me a headache, and annoying my friends.


I'll agree on consistency for Sonic Blast, although if it doesn't get touched I'd be fine. I'd prefer more roars and animal noises though.

Objective Feedback:

Mastermind pets sounds are louder than most (not all) other powersets. Specifically Demons roar is louder than is necessary and more frequent than is reasonable. Robots sound like a herd of armoured elephants stomping through the map.

It would be great if there was a pass through all the sound effects to equalize volumes (with possible exceptions for tier 9 powers and extreme damage powers).

Subjective Feedback:

Glowie/Zowie sound and visual effects need to be more pronounced.

Can we get some way to shut off sounds for individual powers,

Sonic Attacks & Sonic Resonance: I generally like these sounds, but it would be nice if they were more consistent. Some sound artificial, some sound bestial, and some sound like an adrogynous person yelling. Together, they don't fit any one theme as easily as other sets. Not to mention some of them include high-pitched effects which can be a little ear-splitting.

Kinetic Melee: in Beta for GR - much preferred the original sounds The current effects sound like racecars or jets taking off, and don't go with the visuals of the powers at all..

Sounds I've found so annoying that I had to never play them again after trying them once: Energy Melee background hum associated with all EM attacks. Peacebringer background whine associated with all PB attacks. Warshade squeal when powers activate.

Subjective:
Please, oh please, make the demons shut up. And when they absolutely cannot remain silent any longer, let them mutter quietly.

When jumping, I would like to have the option of a Robotic grunt for my Robot characters and a more Monstrous grunt for my Monstrous characters.

I also find the Demon sounds very loud.

I would love the ability to kill the sounds on toggles. Sometimes you like them but sometimes it can get old when the toggle is up all the time.