Guild Wars 2

I tried posting this in the suggestion forums but it told me I wasn’t allowed to post there. Why not? This is my first time posting in the GW2 forums.

This might sound kind of stupid to some people, I’m sure. But something I just can’t seem to look past are the sounds made by certain combat abilities. I’m not talking about the ‘stab’ sound it makes when my dagger meets the flesh or armor of an enemy. That sound is to be expected and improves the aesthetic experience of combat. I play a thief since it is the only class on the game that has an actual resource instead of being based entirely around cooldowns. Yet every thief attack has some completely unnecessary sound attached to it. It’s sort of like a ‘whoosh’ or ‘wha-cka’. And it is louder than the actual sounds of combat, overpowering them.

In case anyone is unsure what sounds I’m referring to, they are very similar to the sound it makes when you dodge. At least for the thief double dagger skills, and some of the sword/dagger skills. It’s like “whoo-fha”.

I don’t know why, but this drives me crazy. It’s just so silly and pointless. I can’t see how it could possibly improve the experience of combat for anyone. If it does, that’s fine. But I’d really appreciate an option to disable it. I know that some people play games without sound, but I’m not a person who can do that. However I’ve been finding myself playing without sound effects lately, using only music, UI and ambient sounds so as to escape these distracting sounds my attacks make. It’s an immersion breaker for me. If I used the thief dagger skill Heartseeker on somebody in real life, I don’t think it would make that sound. A couple thief attacks with daggers/swords/bows also make these types of sounds, but they aren’t nearly as bad as the sounds the dagger attacks make. Unfortunately, the dagger skillset is the only thief skillset that appeals to me. Pistols are nice but at the point I am at in the game they are not capable of dealing even half the amount of DPS as daggers.

The other class I have tried is Guardian. Aside from the fact that what skill to use is determined by little else than what isn’t on cooldown, every third hit with the mace auto attack also makes sort of like a “bwong” sound if I recall. It started growing stale after 20 minutes. I’m not sure how I’d feel about hearing that for 6 months. How do you guys stand it? I would really love to know. I like the game, but these sounds… They are killing my enjoyment.

While I’m at it, I figure I might as well complain about background NPC voice dialogue. If you stand at a crafting station for 20 minutes, you’re going to hear the same lines at least 10 times. These dialogue lines happen in MUCH too frequent succession, in my opinion. Meanwhile, any meaningful dialogue outside of personal story has no voice acting at all. You must read text in heart quests while you’re unable to escape from the repetitive background dialogue without turning off voice volume. It seems backwards to me. If you walk out towards the creek from the Asura starting point where the Inquest NPCs are gathered attempting to recruit, you will hear any one of those 4 or 5 “Join the Inquest!” dialogue lines at least 10 times a minute. Literally, ten times in a single minute. Why?

Thanks for reading and thank you in advance to anyone who can help me overcome my loathing of these unnecessary sounds my skills make, or to Arenanet if you choose to add an option to disables these unpleasantries.

I guess if these things irritate you…well…they irritate you and it doesn’t seem that it’s for anyone else to say that they shouldn’t. You feel how you feel. That said, these things really haven’t bothered me at all. Not sure what else to say.

I play with sounds disabled so I wouldn’t know.

there is no point making a suggestion because the developers haven’t cared about polishing it as they go since release. i made several tickets about the blinding white flashes, not to mention even correcting a single tooltip, and all were ignored. stop playing this game if you care about them because they won’t even correct a tooltip.

Look at “Mark Katzbach
Community Special Operations” patronising post about good feedback, when they’ve been getting it for months since release and ignoring it.

wolfie.7296:

Look at “Mark Katzbach
Community Special Operations” patronising post about good feedback, when they’ve been getting it for months since release and ignoring it.

So the developers don’t listen to player feedback at all, they do very little to improve their game, and you get an infraction for mentioning this fact. Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to play this game anymore. Grinding Gear Games, the developers of Path of Exile, have really spoiled me in the ‘developers listening to their players’ aspect. They are the very image of what a development team for an online RPG should be. And they don’t give you infractions on the forums for simply mentioning their flaws. If you tell them that you think some aspect of their philosophies are flawed, they will thank you for your opinion and change if they feel a change is warranted.

They are a small team developing a game with a huge playerbase and as a result are incredibly busy. Yet one time I sent an email to the lead developer, Chris Wilson, about a suggestion I had for the game. He responded to my email personally, telling me he agrees with my suggestion and thinks it would be an improvement to the mapping (endgame) system. Five days later in their usual bi-weekly patch, my suggestion was implemented into the game. While I’m at it, I might as well mention the fact that their microtransactions are entirely cosmetic and provide no gameplay advantages. From what I can tell so far, there are a few microtransactions in GW2 that are all but non-optional (the pathetic bank that only holds about 30 items comes to mind).

I honestly though Arenanet would be different than Blizzard. Oh well.

DavosTheOnionKnight.1653:

I honestly though Arenanet would be different than Blizzard. Oh well.

They are different.

I don’t pay per month to play the game.

DavosTheOnionKnight.1653:

Blah blah, hate fight sounds

You should get Quip for your thief.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

DavosTheOnionKnight.1653:

I honestly though Arenanet would be different than Blizzard. Oh well.

They are different.

I don’t pay per month to play the game.

How much per month would you say you spend on microtransactions? In WoW there’s no need for microtransactions, barring few select circumstances. Though mainly I was referring to the greed and not listening to players aspect.

It’s very personal, from the things you mentioned only the background chatter in the town annoy me. In Lions arch that is, but they are going to do something about that very soon
None of the combat sounds annoy me, and I cant remember me being annoyed by them in any game. I cannot say if that would be a gamebreaker for me.

DavosTheOnionKnight.1653:

How much per month would you say you spend on microtransactions? In WoW there’s no need for microtransactions, barring few select circumstances. Though mainly I was referring to the greed and not listening to players aspect.

Interesting question, never bothered to calculate this before. For me, it’s €2,22 per month.
Besides, they are very much listening to feedback, if it’s written in a way that makes it worth reading. Yours wasn’t that bad initally. Lose the attitude, and they might actually read it. Playing a staff Ele in fire attunement, I absolutely sympathize with you.
Oh, and just to make sure: you did of course check out the sound options in game where you can turn these down, right?

I logged in to sympathize with you because sometime my ele says things like “Behold the power of fire!” and “Air!” and stuff, and they can grate on you when the other aesthetics are so good. But then I read your next comment.

DavosTheOnionKnight.1653:

So the developers don’t listen to player feedback at all, they do very little to improve their game, and you get an infraction for mentioning this fact. Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to play this game anymore.

So it seems like you’re already done here.

well, I´d say your antagonizing tone isn´t really helping you in having your suggestions taken into consideration. Everything is “stupid”, “silly”, “pointless”. Even your thread title suggests one more of the hobby-complainers. In adult speak: “Make combat voice sounds optional” (thread title) – “I find combat sounds on my thief not really fitting all the time and they are rather repetitive in the long run. I think an option to turn them off would help”. Certainly beats “your stupid game has stupid sounds and you are like that other company I despise and anyway I like that cool small company a lot more and do some advertising for that non-silly game around here, the silly game´s forum”.

If you’re going to quit this game because Anet won’t give you an option to disable weapon skill sounds, then by all means. Just don’t make a big fuss about it and expect us to have sympathy for you.

Out of all the reasons to quit a game, this is perhaps one of most least justifiable.

Sitkaz.5463:

I logged in to sympathize with you because sometime my ele says things like “Behold the power of fire!” and “Air!” and stuff, and they can grate on you when the other aesthetics are so good. But then I read your next comment.

DavosTheOnionKnight.1653:

So the developers don’t listen to player feedback at all, they do very little to improve their game, and you get an infraction for mentioning this fact. Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to play this game anymore.

So it seems like you’re already done here.

It’s just a bunch of empty threats to make us feel bad for him and ‘threaten’ the Devs to give in to the ‘suggestions’ of one person.

As far as I know, if someone really wants to leave a game, they just leave. They don’t make any efforts to stomp their feet and make noise while they exit the door.

I can’t stand all the repetitive sounds of combat so I turn the sound right off. I am kind of sad about that though, since I understand the actual music of the game is supposed to be pretty good. I can’t even remember what the game sounds like anymore. Even if I go on TS I turn game sound off so I can just hear teammates.

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I can’t stand all the repetitive sounds of combat so I turn the sound right off. I am kind of sad about that though, since I understand the actual music of the game is supposed to be pretty good. I can’t even remember what the game sounds like anymore. Even if I go on TS I turn game sound off so I can just hear teammates.

You can turn combat sounds off then turn the music up. The music is fairly nice.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

ozmaniandevil.6805:

I can’t stand all the repetitive sounds of combat so I turn the sound right off. I am kind of sad about that though, since I understand the actual music of the game is supposed to be pretty good. I can’t even remember what the game sounds like anymore. Even if I go on TS I turn game sound off so I can just hear teammates.

You can turn combat sounds off then turn the music up. The music is fairly nice.

Thanks! I had no idea you could do that. Over 1300 hours and I still learn new stuff all the time

from some posts one would conclude Arenanet never implemented anything players asked.

Wallet, Crafting using materials directly from bank, POV changes, Ascended gear, multiple tasks for dailies, some of the balancing changes, less temporary content and more permanent content, bringing back the two temporary dungeons as fractals, bring back some of the temporary mini games…. etc.. there are plenty of examples where Arenanet changed things because of player demand. The PoV changes are a big one since they were pretty against it but still did it anyway because player demand was so big.

Did they do everything players asked? no and thank god for that because if they did every suggestion thats been given to them, they’d need to do an exclusively PvP focused game that has just PvE content that is totally vertical progression oriented and completely horizontal progression at the same time. An MMO is simply a game for the masses while some suggestion might be valid for some people it doesnt mean the majority of the players agree with it not to mention that obviously they cannot do everything and need to prioritize.

Like others have pointed its simply important to post suggestions in a constructive manner. I have yet to see a post infracted just because of a suggestion (of course if its offensive, hostile or patronizing then thats a different story and rightfully so. Rules are Rules and you dont get to ignore them just cause you break them inside a suggestion)

It also makes tactical sense, I mean no disrespect to the OP in anyway but consider one thing, the issue you have like you yourselkittennowledge in your opening post isn’t something that’s likely to affect a lot of people. So with that in mind do you think that statements like "Yeah, I don’t think I’m going to play this game anymore. " are going to help your chances of Arenanet implementing the changes you want? Keep in mind that changes that are good for some players are bad for others. You might hate those sounds which is fair enough but other players might actually enjoy the extra punch to the sounds. With that in mind why would they risk alienating players that enjoy the game as is for someone who claims is no longer going to play? In a case where its hard to determine if a change is for the better or worst these kinds of statements hurt your chances a lot in my opinion. something you might want to keep in mind in the future.

Also you were not allowed to post to the suggestion forum simply because its been archived. I believe no one can post to archived folders

There are actually quite a few “sound” options for those that care to actually hit f11 and take a look. Or, you can always wiki it too if you aren’t in game.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Options#Sound_Options

For the OP, I guess you could simply turn the effects volume down, although that would reduce not only the sounds you don’t want to hear, but also the ones you may want to.

In regards to specifically dual-dagger skill 3 presenting a similar woosh sound as when you dodge roll, this may have been done intentionally by the devs to illustrate that this skill is also allowing your character to evade while attacking. Since some people may not catch the actual death blossom animation, due to graphics or what not, adding the sound enables them to ‘hear’ that they are evading.

The reason you cannot post in the ‘suggestions’ forum is due to restructuring of the forums, not due to anything you have or have not done.

Devs do listen to feedback, though they don’t always necessarily act on it right away. Nor do they necessarily respond directly either. Still, you do get much further in being heard if you are polite and have logical posts, the same as with any company really. People are less inclined to listen if you’re just a flat out kitten about it, even if you do have a valid point. I can’t imagine you enjoy being kittened either… what makes you think they do?

DavosTheOnionKnight.1653:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

DavosTheOnionKnight.1653:

I honestly though Arenanet would be different than Blizzard. Oh well.

They are different.

I don’t pay per month to play the game.

How much per month would you say you spend on microtransactions? In WoW there’s no need for microtransactions, barring few select circumstances. Though mainly I was referring to the greed and not listening to players aspect.

How much per month?

On average, I spend more on Steam games which look interesting and turn out to be complete crap. That is to say I have bought gems with a credit card five times since starting. That’s $100 since buying the game back in July 2012.

I have since spent roughly $300 on games in the Steam store, including titles I was actually looking forward to playing (Ys: Origin, Starbound, XCom: Enemy Unknown, and Desktop Dungeons to name a handful I actually enjoy playing from that list.).

I have not bought gems since November, and the reason I bought them then was for a character slot so I could try out this thief class everyone thinks is OP in WvW. So far, haven’t had much good fortune on it.

As for the grind and not listening aspects? The grind was worse for me in GW1 when I wanted Obsidian armor, or to fill out my silly Master Dungeon Guide. The “not listening to players” was also worse since they had a bad habit of balancing skills in a way to try neutering the meta now and then.

Or so I’m told by the people I used to talk with who cared about the meta game back then. I didn’t set foot in PvP because I simply stank on ice.

lol they have sound options

Um, they have updated and changed the combat noises due to player feedback. The devs actively consulted with folks here and on reddit until the playerbase seemed pretty much satisfied, and this went on for at least a month.

So folks saying that ANet has ignored folks about this, that’s false.

the overflow management, guesting and the queueing is annoying as hell. I think overflows and guesting are a good idea in general but how is it handled at the moment is just not working well. Guests flood servers like Deso, then desos can not play on their home server and end up in an overflow that has too little players to succeed.
I dont feel like the probabiliy for good loot from Teq (as example) is high enough to justify daily camping of 1 to 2 hours.

Either guesting / overflow management needs to change or events like Teq need to scale down when there are less players around.