Well one solution would be to have their noises quiter for when your running around but when you go into sneak mode, your character will focus, and will tune out other nosies essentially making all noises slightly more quiet but increase the sound of the animals

The effectiveness could be effected by the sneak skill maybe?
I just want a peaceful base (no annoying animals making mating calls 24/7) without sacrificing the raids, Cause i like those

Originally posted by Sono:

Actually I noticed this too, a neck far away from me is the same volume as a neck close to me, i'm glad im not the only one who noticed it, it seems like for whatever reason their sounds weren't accented properly to distance, so they play at one volume all the time regardless.

Not so much that the audio is the same but its louder and its fade distance are not the same, this can be tested with sneaking and a bow

Testing the ABSURDLY loud purring, sneak up to a neck and listen to its idle noises (the purr) start to walk away (and i mean far) and youll notice how you can still hear it very clearly from a distance

WHile youre listening to the purr at a distance, hit sneak mode and shoot an arrow nearby the neck, (dont hit it just scare it) it will make the gargle barking noise they make when they get alerted (sounds like extra heavy asthma) but you'll notice its MUCH more quiet than the bark
As you get closer the bark actually gets much louder but the distance it starts to fade off is much shorter than the idle purring. but once you get Right up on it, you'll notice the alert noise is actually the same volume as the idle purring, it just fades out much quicker than the idle purring

SO lets start with basic logic(something I lack) what purrs louder than their own bark? Im pretty sure its an intentional design to make hunting easier(in a hardcore game) but again, if youre ever in the medows near water theres usually 2-6 in a group and theres almost always 15 necks in the vicinity, So it just get very annoying over time when 5-6 necks are purring so loud you can hear them from more than 100M away (again tested with the fishing pole)

Im sure people have the same gripes with the wolves and deer, I sure did but I modded the deer
And again the wolves were so horrifically annoying that the devs themselves had to fix it

Theres also an insane amount of reverb added to the neck noises if you ever pay attention. Not sure why thats in there

Anyway i took that farther than I needed to, considering you agreed with me lol. but its like a thorn in the side. one of the very few horrible things about this game is these idle noises from the enemies lol so it angers me greatly

Honestly the only one i appreciate for hunting is the deer's bark. Boar are more than happy to fight you if alerted so you dont even need to sneak while hunting them. Necks you can find 100% of the time just wandering along water sources if that's your hunting target. The deer are the ones where it actually makes sense you have a distant animal noise that actually does seem to be directional (with headphones) to tell you where the deer is from anywhere vaguely close to it. But deer can also spawn pretty much wherever they feel like it (in appropriate biomes) and are skittish, so knowing where they are before they know where you are actually helps to hunt them.

The rest I wouldn't mind if they at least reduced the range you can hear them at. I do still appreciate hearing the (thankfully fainter now) wolf howls before i stumbled into death blindly my first trips to a mountain but there's not a lot of critters in this game that you hunt that aren't just as willing to rip your face off, so I wouldn't mind the noises still existing as potential warning to nearby enemies (just like you still hear the weird "laugh?" of the greydwarf all over the place) but I dont think we need an audio radar for many of these critters. Especially when they also toss animal noises into ambiance tracks just to mess with you sometimes.

Big mouth, big noise ;)

I guess in terms of design it doesnt make sense why these level one enemies (which spawn a lot) have such a high volume and distance. Typing code is easy, making it make sense and designing it well, takes some actual experience.

And in terms of hunting well.. its a joke you never have to look casue either
1. theres 6 of them outside your base just purring non stop
2. You can hear them from over 135 meters away (i thought it was 75 beforem used fishing rod to measure) its very ridiculous
3. The rate at which they purr is.. moderate. but since youre usually surrounded by atleast 20 (within render distance) the purring is legit non-stop
4. The spawn rate is very high, Especially if it rains, but even if it doesnt rain, 2-6 of these things spawn all along the beaches
5. when you kill one or even a groupl they replaced withing 3 seconds (seen a group spawn in after killing 3)
IDK even an animal noise slider.

Its just annoying you cant make a base in the meadows without standing to what sounds like 18 clogged arteries (the lizards passive purring, which again is louder than their actual attack noise or bark or whatever that is)

I mean these lizards are louder than wolves (just by sheer volume they actually howl softer than a neck purr) wolves are annoying and frequent but fixed with mods, no lizard mods) why is it i can hear them from so far away but a druagr from the same distance is just a whisper. same with most enemies. Trolls included. They arent that loud. Why is a lizard louder (and have more volume distance) than a troll. Goblins being the clear exception to this (and i havent looked in new biome yet)

I think the sound the neck makes is also added as ambient sounds.

I've heard it in the Swamps and along the shores of rivers in / and coast of the Black Forrest; while they don't even spawn there.

As for the amount that spawns, considering not every Neck drops a tail, I think the spawning rate is a compensation to that. Personally I don't bother much about it. The moment they're silly enough to slam that head against the head of my mace it's quiet anyway.

Thorin :)

I will say the idea of an audio slider for specifically creature sounds wouldn't be the worst option. Part of the reason wolves are as quiet as they are is already related to that issue, since they are also tamable and used to just constantly serenade you the song of their people at the top of their lungs. That and I honestly wouldnt mind running around the biomes I'm already used to figuring out how many weird sounds were ambiance and what was actually a critter i dismissed (I've gotten neck sounds in the swamp to and thought it was ambiance for a while, then I discovered that no, there's apparently a single large rock on the very edge of the coastline that counts as black forest in this swamp and i was genuinely hearing necks at that rock from a crypt half a swamp away...discovered thanks to an abomination that spawned at this crypt and suddenly made it much quieter when it wandered over to the rock and decimated said necks).

Originally posted by Oakshield:

I think the sound the neck makes is also added as ambient sounds.

I've heard it in the Swamps and along the shores of rivers in / and coast of the Black Forrest; while they don't even spawn there.

As for the amount that spawns, considering not every Neck drops a tail, I think the spawning rate is a compensation to that. Personally I don't bother much about it. The moment they're silly enough to slam that head against the head of my mace it's quiet anyway.

Thorin :)

The swamp ambiance is far less often (by a lot) though so it doesnt bother me. Its annoying thats its ambiance though. I think the leeches do it too

while we're on the topic of Audio...

when do we get seperate sliders for action sounds vs ambient sounds? Also can we please have something other than horns while sailing? Even with music set to not be constant the horns almost constantly sound while at speed on any watercraft.

I've done my level best to not ♥♥♥♥♥ too much about this early access title, but the audio settings could do with a tweak or two. I can overlook inventory management, grindiness and combat jank, but the Audio is always with me. It's cozy af for the most part, but could benefit from a tweak or two with seperate channels for certain effects and the fact that sailing music tends to ignore the "not constant" music setting even in solo games.

Just turn down your volume?

Originally posted by Fat Rich Cat:

Just turn down your volume?

For the entire game to silence one entity though? thats a work around, not an excuse for bad design, and if you have to work around something, that usually means its something undesirable (or else you wouldnt work around it)

plus its a well known problem these guys have had, Many people complained about deer and theres a mod for it. so many people complained about the wolves that the devs themselves adjusted it. Its bad design
Plus if you turn it down the neck sound sticks out more since its actually louder than a majority of the sounds, since most sounds in this game are pretty quiet with the exception of prey I guess

Plus how is sacrificing all the other important noises worth silencing a few neck when it could just be altered with minimal effort (just adjust the existing variables at bare minimum, listen to how bad it is, and try again)

Actually I noticed this too, a neck far away from me is the same volume as a neck close to me, i'm glad im not the only one who noticed it, it seems like for whatever reason their sounds weren't accented properly to distance, so they play at one volume all the time regardless.

Originally posted by Fat Rich Cat:

Just turn down your volume?

Its not the volume of the game it's the volume of banging rocks vs the wind blowing through the trees & certain mob sounds and certain music tracks that don't obey audio settings. As it stands now you can silence the music or Everything else.

This is an indie game and I applaud what they've done, but they've banked enough to ensure their grandchildren's future if they're remotely financially responsible.

We need more fine tuned audio settings.

All the other gripes can be considered skill issue aside from maybe combat targeting. I can pick at my feet and chop stumps at my feet -why can't I attack on an enemy when "I have the high ground?" Also multiplayer boat shenanigans with random dmg just being in motion.

Audio is with us even outside of combat. It's rarely mentioned anymore. We seem to have adapted to the horns at sea... Kinda hard to enjoy the waves crashing against your ship when that tune insists on playing even at full rowing speed -it's meant to be kinda epic and it is until it isn't. Kill the music at sea and turn it on when I dock? Couldn't just make it not play sometimes? It barely obeys the currently available setting for not constant music. Land music is content to stay off for days at a time, but you're lucky to sail more than a few meters without hearing the horns.

Audio would be good to address by time of Full Release.

Things like this are an issue with any EA title.
They can bank enough to retire without fixing anything. I hope this game doesn't become one of those games. I really truly hope.

The audio isn't even bad at all. It's just the level of control. Hostile vs passive mobs. Environmental ambience vs The Bronze Age. Near constant Epic Horns at sea unless you're literally coasting.

...but alas - The Team has already made bank.
*sigh*

We can but hope and maybe make some noise in suggestions?

The guy who made the silent deer mod once commented that he might do it for necks, alas he never did. That would make me happy. Its just really their constant idle noise like the deer and wolves. and i shouldnt have to silence my whole game to get around it. And im not sure why the idle noises are so loud and frequent, especially since most NPCs dont do that (the goblins are annoying too.)
Also I agree the ocean music is horrible, this is one of the few games I cant really listen to the in game music (some of it is ok) I have to listen to elder scrolls or dungeon siege music (or anything jeremey soule)

Maybe I should just learn to mod it myself, I really dont think the devs even read this stuff

I also think part of the problem is they dont test it on different audio devices, like headphones or speakers with bass (like studio monitors or those speakers with a seperate subwoofer) they just use what they got and call it good (which is kind of why they had so many networking issues when the game got big)