MuNgLo wrote:
Third, what's up with the sound? Will there be any changes? I am getting more used to it but it is still way off when it comes to falloff by distance making any new players really confused. Just opting for the "get used to it" will only serve to alienate new players. I know that if the sound was like this the first time I started the game I wouldn't have played more then 30min or so.
And no. EFX and HRTF do not magically fix the volume of the sounds as to how it relates to distance. HRTF do very much to being able to accuratly locate soundsource via its binaural sound simulation. However it does remove the lower frequencies so it sounds awful as a whole. EFX adds reverb that for some(inc. me) is just silly. Having echo on all sounds, ignoring layout of map and so on just makes it silly and annoying.
Work is still in progress, their are many difficulties and confusing things that comes into play about localisation.
For example in ShootMania as it is right now, character's sound volume get's louder when he moves faster, or when he falls down from higher heights, etc. From an esthetic and logical point of view that sound a lot better. But, in a functional way it confuses people using volume to estimate distance. Indeed, a guy running far from you can have the same volume than a close one, moving slowly.
So it's getting straightened right now, wich means it will be more functional but less esthetic, especially when everybody gets off the same spawn in the same time in modes like siege or such.
That's why right now high frequencies damping was the only thing that was only modulated by distance and was the only "accurate way" to determine other players distance.
But the biggest difficulty with it is that it's unfair, by not taking in account that gamers use many differents headphones to play ShootMania, and also, that some people less hear high frequency than others.
I've been listening to the game with many differents headphones and differences are huge. Some are made for purposes different than gaming, so you can have headphones with no high frequencies at all (hard time to estimate the air absorption this way..) or headpones with so much bass you hear mostly rumble playing the game, a very blurry sound in the end.
Another difficulty is that if you compare it to competitive shooters like counterstrike or such, in shootmania the most used weapon is the rocket, so when you shoot a rocket, there is the detonation first, then the rocket trail sound and finally the explosion, all those sounds can cover other players's footsteps for quite some time, especially when you're attacking in elite, and people rocket spam nearly all the time. But you do need rocket trail sound to know when a rocket comes behind you or in an entrance your about to cross.. Well in some ways isn't it normal that if there is a lot of noise it's hard to hear people walking or jumping ?
Lastly HRTF does not work properly as it is right now, as you were able to experience it yourself, that's why it's disabled by default. If time permits it, this will be fixed, allowing people to dertemine height differences, and better global sound localisation.
So to answer your question about what's up with the sound, futur changes might be :
-> Better sound volume RollOff.
-> No volume or pitch modulation unrelated to distance for other players (kept for 1st person).
-> The pitch will go lower as the player go further, a fairer way to determine distance, and also easier to learn.
-> AirAbsorption will remain as it is right now.
-> Bass frequencies shall be a lot reduced in most of the game sounds to make it clearer and help localisation.
-> Rocket trails and explosions volume will be reduced a bit.
-> Maybe HRTF will be working as it should.
So here it is about sound, i hope you've got a better idea now of the difficulties, and efforts that are put on this matter.
PS : right now EFX enable is mandatory if you want to know where's the ennemy. But you're saying having a lot of echo on all the game sounds, and you're not the first one i think that have been reporting this issue. If this is really acting weird on your side, can you record a video with sound and send it to us, so we can hear if there is something going wrong for some people, and then fix it.
