[Feedback & Question] Player Character sounds and ingame sound volume!
First I'd like to say, that I put this post here because I could not find a more suitable spot category to place it.
Second, I don't really feel comfortable coming to this forum due to previous bad treatment by certain steam community members and certain staff & moderators, these people know who they are and I would appreciate if these would kindly leave me alone and not respond to any of my posts, for time being!
Now, to the actual problem I need to shed some light unto, as it's a real problem for many players - certain ingame character sounds; namely the screams. The scream themselves are not a problem, but a problem is that you cannot adjust certain sounds if you have a legitimate reason to do so, like a medical issue, like for instance tinnitus or another issue where the screams will aggrevate and worsen the player's issue. Even for a person without a any medical issues it can cause medical/health issues to occur, even with the volume adjusted to generally not be considered "too loud".
I personally suffer from tinnitus and have no way to deal with this issue than to turn the game volume so far down that I'm actually at a severe ingame disadvantage, and if don't I'm actually forced to remove the headset from my head just before I'm about to get hooked or am hooking someone, but it way worse when getting hooked as the sound is centralized around the character, and thus will be louder and player equally strong in both of the headset's speakers. Having to remove it each time I'm getting hooked or when hooking someone puts me at disadvantage, and same when having to put the headset back on, either way, I'm at a gameplay disadvantage because I'm forced to do this, and it's very annoying have to do this as well, and furthermore, this detracts from my gameplay experience, meaning it impacts my gameplay experience negatively.
Tinnitus is fairly common these days, and there are a lot of other valid medical/health reasons as to why you'd need to be able to adjust the characters sounds specifically, or the very least be able to disable those sounds. Where disabling a sound can how I see it not be considered an advantage.
This is something that has been a problem since release of the game and as far as I know has also been brought up before by others, it has not been resolved, even due a medical argument being raised. I recall when this issue was "addressed" it was denied to give the option to being able to adjust various game sounds, including character sounds, as player clever players might somehow abuse this and achieve a gameplay advantage. But being able to disable character screams can in no way be considered an unfair ingame advantage, because if you disable character screams, you don't suddenly become able to do something that you could not otherwise do - the only time you could consider it having an effect on gameplay balance, would be negatively if you relied on the screams for whatever reasons - say for instance the doc, but he also get visual cues, so even if they're disabled he wouldn't be at total a disadvantage in that regard, besides if one later found that when playing as the doc the screams were important enough, the player could just re-enable them.
So could we at least get the option to disable player character screams, and ideally, having it distinguish between both own character, other player's character and killer.
Thank you!
//Incarnate.
Ps. If you have nothing constructive and condusive to contribute with, then please don't engage in this thread.
Comments
I think its simply because of tecnical issues that they can't have seperate sound sliders for gameplay. And the abuses of course.
Technical issues? I know enough about code and game development to know that if they can't specifically isolate specific sounds, then it's because they have designed to their own detriment. Because disabling certain sounds, can be as simple as setting as not having the sound trigger at all.
How exactly can you abuse disabling character screams?
you could make it so that for example as killer you hear moans louder than intended or get the music to be super quiet you know that kind of thing.
In Dbd everything can be abused so the devs need to be super carefull with that .
I wish that they implement a "fade to black flashlight screen" as i get eye pain when i see too much white in my screen multiple times.
How can you make a scream louder, IF it's DISABLED?
I know you could abuse that kind of thing, IF, and only if you could adjust the those specific sounds.
But I'm litterally talking about completely disabling them, thats quite different - How exactly could you get an unfair advantage from DISABLING the character screams?
Fair enough then.
Because the character screams are intended to cover up other sounds. Every bit of the sound design is intentional, including the fact that you can't lower or disable any specific sounds.
..and what sounds would those be exactly that the screams are intended to cover up and why exactly are those needed to be covered by the screams?
Other Survivors around, for example. The point is for the sound to be disorienting for both Survivors and Killers.
Its because sound in this game is key to the players as well.
But the scream doesn't disorient anyone, and certainly not other survivors who have 3rd person view.
..and how would it be disorienting to the killer? Covering up the sounds of nearby survivors, that would also be covered up other game sounds.
That's the way the game was designed. If you personally are not disoriented, good for you, but don't assume that's everyone.
######### thats a good point.
Personally, I'm not disoriented, I'm just in pain if I don't remove the headset.
What sounds from the nearby survivors exactly would they cover up?
Walking, running? The killer has eyes you know. Even if the sound design is intentional, it should still be possible to disable those sounds.
yeah for me the AHHAHHHHH does nothing at all. Im still able to hear perfectly fine.
Unfortunately the sound design is deeply tied with the gameplay, that's why there's no way to personalize settings. If you problem is caused by screams you can use Calm Spirit as survivor, but otherwise I don't see what else it could be done. Even if it's just disabling screams, unless other people with your same problem speak out they won't make changes that could potentially have repercussions just for one person.
How exactly would calm spirit affect the screams produced by getting hooked? As far as I know they don't, and even if they did, they would force anyone who have a need to disable the screams, to run that perk.
It's easier to do something about this that you think, if they don't provide a fix for it, then it's not because they can't it's because don't want to. The screams being deeply tied to some part of the gameplay, that would have to be pointed out more specifically what that is it affects.
@White_Owl - Do you actually know how many people who're playing this game? In the last 30 days, on average aproximately 20k players, and peak is 36k+. But that doesn't specifically reflect which of those who're playing it that has a medical condition/issue that is affected and possibly worsened by playing the game. It would be a lot better to look at the amount of copies sold, I don't know the actual current number, but in mid 2017 the amount of copies sold was 1 mil.+ Now, then consider how many of those actually come to forums and actively engage in the threads, I don't know the specific member count or active member count for that matter, but say 10k players come to the forums, where maybe it's only a few of those with the actual medical issues who come to forum but possibly not the forum where the post in question that they need to respond to is located, where the rest just keep coping while playing or stop all together at some point. Furthermore, these players might not even see this specific thread - See my point? Just because I'm the only one to speak up, that doesn't mean that there couldn't be many others who're experiencing the same issue with the game, and also it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be addressed just because a few speak up. As core part of the gameplay, it's pretty bad to design it so that you will get screamed in your ear with no way of avoiding it. Consider how many play the game with headphones on these days, not to mention HD and high fidelity one's, which doesn't make it any better, in fact they just make it worse. But irregardless of the quality of the headphones, where are headphones placed? On your head around your ears, which places the speakers right besides your ears, this makes the screams come right next to your ears - do you know the equivalent of that? One standing beside you with their mouth up close to your ears and screaming! Now, screams from further away can be a problem for some, but it's less of a problem, but here you have no way to avoid it, if you're the being hooked or the one hooking the survivor.
To note, some of the game owners, who have stopped playing it, may have stopped playing it for medical reasons without realizing that it possibly could be changed so it they could've continued playing, if they spoke up. Furthermore, you can't only be considering those who're currently playing it and speaking up about the problem, you also have to look at those who have stopped playing due to this reason, and then there are also the pontential players, especially those who've been looking at gameplay videos, etc. and found it would be a medical issue for them to play, and then not. Also, designing a game in such a way that it can cause medical issues or be an issue for those with a medical problem, is certainly not a good thing, and moreover, refusing to to actually provide a workaround when the workaround would be more a detriment to gameplay advantage than the other way, is not good either.
@not_Queen - @ProfoundEnding specifically asked if you could chime in on the original post's subject - do you have anything you can say in that regard?
So any dev who'd like to say anything in regards to the original post? Maybe @not_Queen who was already tagged early on? ..or are the devs just going to remain silent on this one as well?
Alight, so @not_Queen, hasn't chimed in, perhaps she don't want to?
Maybe @Janick can chime in on the matter instead? Would be great with an actual dev response regarding this issue.
I guess the devs don't really care about their players well being when playing the game, which to me says alot about the devs.
Perhaps @Patricia would like to chime in instead?