I would like to suggest hiring a sound engineer. The sounds in the game need improving. There are lots of areas where the sound either doesn't fit or could be tweaked to really improve the game experience and create a more immersive environment. I was in a mine today that had a hot steam geyser, and it would have been REALLY cool to hear the steam. Also, the combat sounds need some improvement as well. It would be awesome to have squishy sounds from slime. Barking and growling from animal attacks. Crickets or frogs at night. Etc...
Perhaps it was my imagination, but I remember some sounds as you mentioned, although they don't seem to be everywhere/most places they ought to be. My largest gripe about the sounds are the sometimea very-loud combat noise from elementals. They can be jarringly loud at timea and it's certainly a bug.
They did have a Dev working on the sounds for quite a few months. Was he one who was let go when the team was downsized ? (Genuine question, don't know the answer)
It is a shame they don't have the sound guy. I appreciate they needed to scale down costs and focus on priories, but I think the sound is so poor in some cases it is actually a priority and good sound is so important to a game. For me, footsteps are barely audible, some sounds are extremely loud, others very quiet and not proportional to each other. The overall volume is lower than I would like and generally needs a boost, at least on my machine and especially with headphones.
If they layered in great ambient sound the experience would be amazing over night. Im planning on building bit of a control panel based on the zone, where you can select a variety of city ambiance, coastal ambiance etc. I just bought some good recording equipment to make my own recordings aswell. Sound is king. from the background ambiance, to light wipsy music (like wow) to the effects. As you can tell im a gritty realism guy, im not much into arcade like experiences. Does anyone else enjoy the sound in other games like DayZ? Thats a game you can really sink some time into, and surprisingly a lot of the experience is down to its immersive sound design.
Sound and visuals one of the most important points in ambiance. Yep I totally agree on the lack of good sound effects. Sometimes the music also just cuts in the middle of the song. Its crap really. At least add some fading rather then absurd stopping.
We can go all out on what needs to be improve and there is a lot to be done but they need to work on a lot. This game will continue to get better over time just give them some times as they are a small team! Pretty sure lot of post we bring up (like this one) devs are aware and have plan for it in future
This thread motivated me to go record this: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...d-some-stiff-wind-ambience-with-birds.144447/
+1 for support could not agree more. Sounds are sometimes even more important than visuals. Remember the radio anyone? Without sound, the experience is significantly impaired and I always wonder why developers skimp on this aspect. Additionally the type and relativity is just as important as the quality. For example, most attacks with a sharp blade on a human body are more of a thud due to impact of force and connecting with bone. There is no real 'slice' sound, rather a bit of tissue and blood. However it needs to be specific to the blade type. Clearly a blunt object will have deeper bass than a small knife. Though we don't want to get too carried away with the thud,. A lot of eastern influenced MMOs have a very a-typical crunch sound when attacking things and it seriously stinks. It totally breaks your immersion. Age of Conan did it very well. When that axe sunk into a mob's shoulder, you heard the connection to the bone and that slight bit of slush from the blood and tissue tearing. What about the sound of armor when moving of being attacked?; or mobs and what they sound like when they are being hurt or taking damage? That's only combat, and a few aspects at that. Then there's world and atmospheric sounds, ambiance. LOTRO did some amazing things with sight and sound to create an environment that drew you in. Here's hoping they take audio seriously.