The new sounds effect feedback

[CaveNoob]

My Rex sounds like a kitty cat.

I had to put him down. 

[LethalPianoWire]

Water Sound bugs/issues:

Before I forget to the mention them, please have someone evaluate the "drinking fountain" effect on the taps for plumbing. There are dead zones in which you hear ZERO sound if you do a 360 while at the "tap".

i.e. Walk up to a pipe with a drinking tap applied, spin in a 360 so you can test the sound of the tap rotating behind you and then in front.

The sound should sound a little "brighter" or more treble in front and darker when behind. This is due to the shape of your ears and how we identify positional audio sources. There are other factors as well, distance, pitch, etc. Right now it's just a little louder infront and it sounds the same all the way around, while it does move, there are dead spots. I know of 2 where there is no overlap. 

"Pond Water" in Drayo's Cove - the previous water sound, sounded more accurate, like a boat on water with it just quietly rustling underneath. The current new sound, sounds like a river running in the middle of the pond. This seems inaccurate. It also looks like you have very specific "hidden" sound speakers placed so as you approach one spot you hear the sound moving around. I could tell 3-4 separate locations where the sound volumes were not uniform and it got louder as I approached a certain location and then faded away slightly .... while still in the middle of the pond. It's very distracting. 

 

Sound effects of the game vs a running sound track in the background.

This is going to be up to lots of debate and opinion but the thing that I loved the most about ARK was, it felt like you were actually on a deserted island. All you hear is the "sound effects of the island" which is the actual soundtrack!!! You don't need music playing in the background as "background music". I love the time of day changes and the little queues that happen to let you know it's gone from morning to afternoon or evening and then on to night. 

Please keep this.

It creates a more tense environment if you're out at night, with a torch, and then suddenly THE OLD COMBAT MUSIC STARTS, and you get attacked and fight. The intensity it started with was perfect. I'm glad to find out, it's still present in the Grasslands. I'll have to go visit to see/hear it.

I like the idea of a combat music that is consistent, so you know how to react and when to react. I also like the idea of having little jingles play as the time of day progresses, those are great queues to let you know the day is getting longer or night time is approaching besides the obvious sun setting.

I'm not sure each area needs it's own fight music and heavy/light fight music. I think environmental sound effects would do a better job of giving you the impression you're in a cave, winter scape, jungle, etc vs. having to have specific music for each area. If you intend to do this, then might I suggest you break background music out into a toggle-able option, as my personal preference would be to have the jingles, combat music and then just sound effects. I do not necessarily want background music to fill in the gaps. I think the sound effects do a great job of that. You can hear the breeze and rustling of the leaves at night, the bugs, part of the water. It does a great job of making you feel like you're in isolation. i.e. You're on the beach coast etc, you hear the ferns and palms leaves rustling, the water of the near by ocean ... you could close your eyes and know you were on a beach. That's how it should sound. I think you nailed that. You don't have a personal sound track running all the time lol.

If you want to have "heavier" fight music then perhaps (if it isn't based on it already) do it along the lines of size/threat of the dinosaur. 

The little guys, you get combat music.(perhaps most common and consistent across biomes).
The medium guys, the guys who make audiable stomping (Parasaur, Stego, Trike etc) get the same combat but vamped up a little more.
The medium/heavy - Carnos, Therizine, (appropriate water things like sharks...mantas) get more intense combat music.
The real heavy is for Rex's or other things of top of the food chain.

You can then have cave boss fight sounds, underwater cave boss sounds, the 3 top island bosses have their own fight music ...lots of options to bring in variety, but the run of the mill, small and medium guys should have the original/most common battle music in any area. 

This will help identify, from different biomes, these guys are easy, don't worry about it. "Oh that's the Rex music!  - this is gonna suck, maybe I should run away" ... that type of deal.

You could then add the option of having "jungle" background music playing which can be toggled on/off for those who want or don't want. Win-Win. 

I think if you had consistent and constant sound effects occuring in each area that was biome specific, you'd have your background soundtrack and it would be more immersive than you could ask for. i.e. I like how the water in Drayo's Cove sounded different than the sound effects for the C island south of Drayo's. The sounds of seagulls etc make you feel like you're out at sea / open water. That was great. When you're on a river, it sounds like a river of running water. If you're in the middle of the pond though ... it shouldn't sound like you're standing next to a babbling Brooke.

Dino Sounds

I can't comment on the new dino sound effect changes yet, but I do agree generally they are weak sounding. I felt before the Carno was over-bearing and loud stomping that I had to turn it down because it was just small mini explosions occuring and while I wanted the sound effects of the island louder, I didn't need to hear the axe chopping a tree like it was inside my head lol or the Carno was crazy impact. I think the "sound/tone" of the Carno was great, just maybe a little too loud. 

The Argy currently sounds like it's breaking it's neck each time it defecates or stretches and it does sound like you had some "dude" make eagle/bird noises with a growl for it. Not great.

I loved the old Parasaur sounds of the "moo-ing" they did. I thought that was great. 

I'll comment more when I've spent a bit more time on them and really focus on evaluating instead of trying to have fun playing the game.

Very glad to hear Devs and the Composer are reading these comments and are involved!! Great news.

Thanks for reading - SORRY if TL;DR

LPW.

[gccomposer]

6 hours ago, LethalPianoWire said:

It creates a more tense environment if you're out at night, with a torch, and then suddenly THE OLD COMBAT MUSIC STARTS, and you get attacked and fight. The intensity it started with was perfect. I'm glad to find out, it's still present in the Grasslands. I'll have to go visit to see/hear it.

I like the idea of a combat music that is consistent, so you know how to react and when to react. I also like the idea of having little jingles play as the time of day progresses, those are great queues to let you know the day is getting longer or night time is approaching besides the obvious sun setting.

I'm not sure each area needs it's own fight music and heavy/light fight music. I think environmental sound effects would do a better job of giving you the impression you're in a cave, winter scape, jungle, etc vs. having to have specific music for each area. If you intend to do this, then might I suggest you break background music out into a toggle-able option, as my personal preference would be to have the jingles, combat music and then just sound effects. I do not necessarily want background music to fill in the gaps. I think the sound effects do a great job of that. You can hear the breeze and rustling of the leaves at night, the bugs, part of the water. It does a great job of making you feel like you're in isolation. i.e. You're on the beach coast etc, you hear the ferns and palms leaves rustling, the water of the near by ocean ... you could close your eyes and know you were on a beach. That's how it should sound. I think you nailed that. You don't have a personal sound track running all the time lol.

 

To be clear, there are no plans to do ambient background music for the game that plays on a loop non-stop. I agree with you on this, plus this isn't a game with a more 'controlled' narrative like Skyrim or Witcher (yes, those games are open world, but the scripting for the music can be controlled much more easily as you don't have to take into account multiplayer).  I am not sure the resources expended to create ambient music are necessarily worth the return, will it really add anything that the island sounds don't already? Probably not.

Constant soundtracks can work in some games, but probably not this one. That said, everyone has their own tastes! I can understand why some people want background music, for sure.

The idea is that - once we get to final release - we have combat music that plays at the same starting intensity - but music that is appropriate to each area, and appropriate for the intensity of combat. We need music to differentiate between the biomes IMO, because otherwise there just simply won't be enough variety in the game.

So you''ll still get the environmental sounds, but the combat music will kick in and hopefully be appropriate for whatever biome you are in.

We are already doing 'heavy' vs 'light' music based on what you are fighting - these things can probably be tweaked, but honestly, I think the biggest problem (which is the easiest to solve) is the starting intensity of combat tracks. Though... I don't want to jump-scare everyone every time there is a combat

Thanks for the feedback. 

[mleii]

@LethalPianoWire great feedback, and agree 100%. The biome sounds make the game feel much more immersive to me and a background soundtrack of music would get boring quick in a game like this, especially considering the hours you play in it.  Glad to hear that the sound and music creators have similar thoughts.

I also agree on the sound levels.  I play on a console and have a great home theater sound system hooked up so at times the basic sounds of doing things are much too loud.  I'd hate to have to turn all the great effects down because of a few that are much louder than the should be.  Not sure if volume levels could be separated out so that users can control them, nor which ones exactly I'd want in a separate list besides say the players sound effects vs all the others.

[LethalPianoWire]

@mleii  Thanks for the comment mleii

@gccomposer 

10 hours ago, gccomposer said:

The idea is that - once we get to final release - we have combat music that plays at the same starting intensity - but music that is appropriate to each area, and appropriate for the intensity of combat. We need music to differentiate between the biomes IMO, because otherwise there just simply won't be enough variety in the game.

So you''ll still get the environmental sounds, but the combat music will kick in and hopefully be appropriate for whatever biome you are in.

Hi GC, thanks for taking the time to respond.

I figured that was the idea with biome specific music introduced in the patch notes. Personally, I'm 50-50 torn on the idea. I like the idea of area specific music, environment sounds, landscape and creatures, but I'm also torn with having consistent "fight" music for each encounter. Lots of games use a standard combat music and I don't think there's a problem with that. It doesn't hurt to try it out, see what the feedback is and then change it if your audience really is against it. The 80-20 rule applies. LOL. You can never make everyone happy but if you make most of the people, then you've done a good job. Your challenge though is in order to introduce more music you really only have combat sequences to use otherwise it will distract from the environment.

I think you're correct in that the music needs to change to be more intense and that will probably fix most of my issues. It has to respond in kind like the sneaking raptor that just jumped out of the forest to gank you on the beach while you were harvesting wood because you're freezing, naked and starving. It should reflect "panic" most times lol. The only time combat isn't "panic" is when you feel secure on a powerful dino or initiate it yourself. It can still be very intense though.

I would strongly consider reviewing the Title music though, the horns sound slightly out of tune about 20-30sec in and it sounds more like a Mariachi band. The previous was very fitting and I loved listening to the opening music. I've actually sat at the menu screen a few times just to listen to it.

LPW
 

 

[phantomman01]

5 hours ago, mleii said:

The biome sounds make the game feel much more immersive to me and a background soundtrack of music would get boring quick in a game like this, especially considering the hours you play in it.

I kind of see your point with this but many people have put a ton of hours in Skyrim too. I and possibly others wouldn't mind some sort of ambient music sometimes though. Maybe have an option to toggle it on or off (if possible)?

[gccomposer]

2 hours ago, LethalPianoWire said:

Lots of games use a standard combat music and I don't think there's a problem with that. It doesn't hurt to try it out, see what the feedback is and then change it if your audience really is against it. 

I would strongly consider reviewing the Title music though, the horns sound slightly out of tune about 20-30sec in and it sounds more like a Mariachi band. The previous was very fitting and I loved listening to the opening music. I've actually sat at the menu screen a few times just to listen to it.

 

To your first point I've quoted above - it depends on the game. The bigger open world games generally have area-specific combat music. Can go both ways on this. The other issue - which I've alluded to in my original post, is that people are used to the original combat, and change isn't welcome. I definitely do not think this issue would be anywhere near as magnified if people hadn't heard the original combat music so many times during Early Access (I mean, 2 years almost with the same combat themes, lol). This is an issue unique to EA games, and it's something I'll consider if I'm lucky enough to work on a different EA title. On the one hand, it's cool that people like the original combat tracks so much, but sticking to just those can potentially hamstring things moving forward. In any case, I think I know how to get this right so we get to the 80/20 mark  

To the second point - it's not an issue of tuning, it's an issue of balance and production aesthetic. The trumpets/horns do not have enough support - thus they sound exposed (and that gives the mariachi band feel that you allude to). In the original the strings are more dominant than I thought they were and that was something I'd forgotten when mixing. There is also definitely not enough reverb on the track. In any case, every single track - including the theme, gets another pass before release. I am pretty sure you won't be disappointed at the final result. 

Just now, phantomman01 said:

I kind of see your point with this but many people have put a ton of hours in Skyrim too. I and possibly others wouldn't mind some sort of ambient music sometimes though. Maybe have an option to toggle it on or off (if possible)?

In Skyrim and Witcher, they are both single player games, and it's easier to define a music system for something that is more tightly experienced. There's a lot to consider on the implementation side for ARK (something I'm not responsible for). If we introduce ambient music, where does it play, when does it stop, how does it work with the time-of-day transitions, how does it transtion into battle music, how does it transition out of battle music. Then you have to consider what triggers battle music and what level of intensity triggers which cue.

And that's just with a single player game.... It gets a whole lot more complicated when you have to take into account multiplayer and things happening server-side.

If it was just a question of writing ambient music and sticking it in the game, it would probably be done already, but it's an implementation thing. It's something that could be looked into after the game comes out of early access, but right now, the general consensus is that the cons outweigh the pros. We definitely need to look at this moving forward though and look at what other multiplayer games are doing and how they are doing it.

The toggle/slider suggestion could work, but it's really a stop-gap solution. If we were to put ambient music in, we'd probably want to make it work with everything else (but also still give the option). We'll try and get some brains on it!

FWIW - the TEK Cave that was introduced in v257 does have ambient music playing throughout!

[phantomman01]

1 minute ago, gccomposer said:

In Skyrim and Witcher, they are both single player games, and it's easier to define a music system for something that is more tightly experienced. There's a lot to consider on the implementation side for ARK (something I'm not responsible for). If we introduce ambient music, where does it play, when does it stop, how does it work with the time-of-day transitions, how does it transtion into battle music, how does it transition out of battle music. Then you have to consider what triggers battle music and what level of intensity triggers which cue.

And that's just with a single player game.... It gets a whole lot more complicated when you have to take into account multiplayer and things happening server-side.

If it was just a question of writing ambient music and sticking it in the game, it would probably be done already, but it's an implementation thing. It's something that could be looked into after the game comes out of early access, but right now, the general consensus is that the cons outweigh the pros. We definitely need to look at this moving forward though and look at what other multiplayer games are doing and how they are doing it.

The toggle/slider suggestion could work, but it's really a stop-gap solution. If we were to put ambient music in, we'd probably want to make it work with everything else (but also still give the option). We'll try and get some brains on it!

FWIW - the TEK Cave that was introduced in v257 does have ambient music playing throughout!

Thank you for replying! I figured there's a lot of setting up and coding that I didn't know about. I didn't even consider the single player and multiplayer being setup separately. I don't mind either way....I'm still going to play lol!

[7Eleven]

I actually really like the new giga sounds. Roar sounds menacing, albeit metallic, but the bite sounds mean! A- 

[Lewiatan]

@SBaker When I join the game the music you hear when you wake up is stuttering. 

[LethalPianoWire]

@Lewiatan  Yup, agreed. When loading, it seems the game stutters while loading textures and the music pauses/stops during those times while it's sorting itself out. I've experienced this as well.

 

[Jostabeere]

On 7.5.2017 at 6:09 PM, Horvath said:

Where am i whiny? Im just saying facts kiddo.

You probably should look up your "facts" first before you make some up. We definitely know how some dinosaurs sounded based on their skull form. You opinion on not liking them is just, as said, your opinion.

[Horvath]

On 13.6.2017 at 3:05 PM, Jostabeere said:

You probably should look up your "facts" first before you make some up. We definitely know how some dinosaurs sounded based on their skull form. You opinion on not liking them is just, as said, your opinion.

We know nothing absolutely nothing about how dinosaurs sounded and we never will.

[Jostabeere]

9 hours ago, Horvath said:

We know nothing absolutely nothing about how dinosaurs sounded and we never will.

If you know nothing about it, why are you stating facts? Facts are undeniable truth, not your opinion on something we don't know about.

[Horvath]

On 26.7.2017 at 6:56 PM, Jostabeere said:

If you know nothing about it, why are you stating facts? Facts are undeniable truth, not your opinion on something we don't know about.

u said we knowq it only based on skull form thats invalid.