Problem with Zombie sounds

[Baxitus]

Hello,

 

I am not very happy with the sounds of the zombies. The sounds themselves are OK. It's just incredibly hard to spot zombies, especially in terms of distance. A zombie away from me sounds like it's standing next to me. A zombie in a house sounds like he's right in front of me, as if there's no wall between him and me.

 

In addition, it is often difficult to locate the direction from which the noise comes. When I fight a zombie and then turn to run away, the sound is still as if it were standing in front of me. In a house I can not tell if the sound is below me in the basement, above me in the attic or on my floor.

 

My sound is over a good headphone.

 

That often bothers me a bit and I wanted to ask if that should be improved.

 

best regards

[RipClaw]

I'll be glad to hear the zombies at all. Since A17 these are all little ninjas that sneak up on you without making a sound.

[Khulkhuum]

I would like to remind people that sound is pretty peculiar on itself. We shouldn't even try to compare RL sounds to game sounds that easily for a few reasons:

1. Day time sounds feel way different than night time sounds. This is to some extent due regular noise levels that you get accustomed during the day (like very distant machinery working, vehicle sounds, people movement and talking, etc.), because from far away their volume gets very low, yet they contribute to general noise levels. You lack the amounts of sounds that humans and objects generate during the night, which is why the feeling of closing a bathroom door in the night is so loud compared to during the day.

2. After an apocalypse you wouldn't have a lot of objects or entities generating sounds. Not many cars moving around, perhaps herds of zombies grunting, but most machines would be inactive (lack of power or disabled in natural or artificial way), etc. This only wouldn't generate high noise levels compared to our industrial age sounds.

3. Nights wouldn't be much different than days thanks to what i'm talking about above. Sure you get the animals and insects active during day and night different, but that's it.

4. In cities sound propagates differently than in open fields. There are many buildings from which sound bounces, making the person hearing it feel as if it came from a different direction. Even crossing a building corner can make such an effect. Sure sound shouldn't be so well audible through a thick building wall or floor (hearing every Z in a building when you're on base floor), but considering how soundless everything would be in the apocalypse, i wouldn't say that's far from truth.

 

If you're still feeling perplexed, compare how you enter a concert and it is "TOO LOUD" at the start, but after a while you get accustomed to it and could even feel that it's fine (not talking about way too high volume). Another example, clap your hands the same way in a place where there is silence and in a room full of people talking (or during the night and day).

[Aldakoopa]

I'll be glad to hear the zombies at all. Since A17 these are all little ninjas that sneak up on you without making a sound.

 

No kidding. Just last night I was looting a supply drop and sorting my inventory, when big mama comes out of nowhere and smacks me in the back of the head.

 

I never heard any moans, grunts, or even footsteps which are usually very distinct on the large zombies like her. She got me good too, stunned and bleeding. I wonder if zombies get a sneak attack bonus...

[warmer]

Zombie sounds have drastically improved, although they could be MUCH better. Do you use any other sound effects with your audio driver? My best suggestion is to turn them all off if you are using virtual surround sound or other similar stereo field manipulation effects. That will drastically affect your ability to localize them.

 

I am working on a mod to replace all zombie sounds and animal sounds. (the dog have NO sound when running) Eventually I am aiming for 4-5 unique sound per zombie type. That will give you the ability to identify them prior to seeing them. (Think knowing who answered the phone just by their voice)

 

I have to wonder if they nerfed movement sounds for most zombies except the big guys in Hawaiian shirts, because back in the day a horde sounded like a bunch of amateur tap dancers coming towards you.

 

What they need to do is introduce a

 

if the number of concurrent soundA >= 4 do not trigger more sounds of the same sounds.

 

Something similar to that effect. I have had to do that in several games I designed sound for in the past.

[n2n1]

The sound is broken. It makes no sense to talk about reflection and HTRF-filters. Drivers and settings - this will not help.

It was just better before patch A14.8.

Silent ninja appeared just then. If you noticed, the silent - only those who are awake, ie the "sleepers".

You do not think that a bad sound is a feature?

 

if the number of concurrent soundA >= 4 do not trigger more sounds of the same sounds.

I have seen that similar settings exist and are available through xml. But they don't work.

[Khulkhuum]

I think that was made this way, intentional or not, because the sounds were too much and they didn't know how to rework them. So now you don't hear enough to make players be surprised by them more.

 

I agree that even walking/shambling should have sound, even if for short distance and running for bigger. Occasional grunts should be audible from time to time, but i get it that can be hard when Zs spawn up close.

 

This leads to my other notion, which i posted elsewhere. Make Z spawning in a bigger distance, achievable only whne memory Z memory usage is lower.

[n2n1]

Yes, earlier - they said something about a similar problem. (multiple sounds)

But now, i'm afraid they will say that this is so conceived and it is not a bug, but a design solution to scare the player with a sudden appearance of zombies.

[Morloc]

Never had any issues

them. :\

 

 

-Morloc

[Minandreas]

I have had this sort of complaint ever since I started playing, but they have definitely made progress on it.

 

As for directional sound, the game is pretty damn good at it these days. If you're not getting good directional sound, there's something going on for you settings wise that is causing issues. Double check things. I had to change something outside of the game with relation to my headphones settings to get it working right.

 

However, when it comes to walls, you're out of luck. It drives me nuts too, but when I asked about this in the past the devs basically said that they can't do anything about it. I guess making blocks actually effect volume in a voxel based game is just a no-go from a programming standpoint. So ya. Just have to deal with a zombie on the other side of a wall sounding like its breathing on your neck.

[warmer]

As for directional sound, the game is pretty damn good at it these days. If you're not getting good directional sound, there's something going on for you settings wise that is causing issues. Double check things. I had to change something outside of the game with relation to my headphones settings to get it working right.

 

I definitely agree with the above statement. I have really good spatial awareness due to mixing music professionally for the last 20 years. I can usually pinpoint the angle a zed is on within 10-15 degrees easily. If you aren't able to hear which side they are on, or front or back, you likely have spatial effects f'n with that. I use headphone almost exclusively when I game and have no issue identifying where they are with pretty good accuracy.

[wizard puke]

I definitely agree with the above statement. I have really good spatial awareness due to mixing music professionally for the last 20 years. I can usually pinpoint the angle a zed is on within 10-15 degrees easily.

 

In l4d2 I have no problem differentiating between a jockey creeping up left behind me or left in front of me using generic stereo earbuds. I find that I am experiencing the same issue as the op. Maybe there's a lowpass cut on sounds behind you in the game that isn't significant enough to be noticable on bad gear with a small frequency range?