Guild Wars 2

@ bertillec

There’s nothing customer support will be able to do to help you with this bug. I’ve found the root cause, and the fix will be out to you as soon as it can! Thanks for listening!

Nike.2631:

Cody Crichton.7516:

Nike.2631:

I’d swear my Male Asura Engineer has a single Female Norn guttural sound accidentally cross-linked. He has one grunt I am certain is pulling from the wrong set.

If you can find a reliable way to get that mismatched sound to play, like a specific skill or action, then do tell. Something like that should definitely be fixed.

Further research on my Asuran Male Engineer:

The sound that I believe is Claudia Christian/Female Norn is part of the set that can be triggered by jumping – jumping up and down in place will eventually produce it.

Its one of 3 “Hmmm” sounds (as opposed to the he-uut, yea-aah, aaah, and other jumping noises ). The highest pitched Hmmm sounds like the Asuran male voice actor. The suspect one is one of the two deeper pitches.

Sorry I can’t be more precise. I’m not sure I have the technical language to lead you to it more exactly…

All those sounds asura males make when jumping are definitely the asura male voice. Nothing has changed with that sound pool since we shipped last year either. Some of them do sound like ‘hm’, but none of them are nornlike nor ladylike. The ‘hm’ ones are in there to break up the more manic sounding ones so the asura doesn’t sound like he’s exerting himself overmuch every time he vocalizes his jump.

If you have feedback about it, though, it’s always welcome. Thanks for taking the time to check it out and post about it.

Looked into this and found a crucial bit of audio logic missing from the stow weapon functionality which would cause all weapon stow sounds to not play.

Thanks so much for reporting this, and for providing a lot of detail. Your weapon stow sounds not playing could have been the result of any number of issues, many of which could be very specific to your character’s race, gender, and your weapon of choice, but apparently in this case the sounds won’t play no matter what.

A fix will be coming soon!

AllNightPlayer.1286:

Cody Crichton.7516:

Sylvari females have and always have had their own vocal (guttural) set.

Each of the sounds for guttural types used between the various races are recorded by different actors but with similar deliveries—hence there is some stylistic resemblance between sylvari female and human female within a given action. Especially so between human and sylvari because they also share sound cue timings since they’re animated so similarly. But each player type definitely has a unique set of sounds.

That’s what I thought too — about the different actors — therefore I always repored it as a sound bug. But after a while, I wanted to “check” it myself. That’s why I extracted the audio files. After a bit of “searching” I found the “guttural” sound sets. Being extracted in one “line-up”, it was easy to listen to all of them for all races. And please believe me Cody, as I reached the sylvari set, there were some files from the human set (again) (including the above-mentioned sounds).
Besides the sylvari do sound different than the humans. Higher in tone. I don’t now, if Jennifer Hale and April Stewart performed the vocal sets themselves, but they sure sound different.

If you say, Cody, that every actor performed a whole set, than some sylvari sounds are simply not in the game. Or let’s just say, I did not find them, where they had to be and they won’t activate.

Hm, it appears there is some overlap between human female and sylvari female, but it is asset-duplication/renaming and so its not a bug that is causing this, nor is it immediately apparent without digging up the raw, uncompressed sound files and listening to them side-by-side. Difference is, I don’t have to pull apart the .dat file to do it, and so I can be more accurate. Although I don’t have much time to devote to this, it’s worth looking into rather than let the discussion die.

So it is also very rare that this is the case for sylvari female. By far, most of the guttural sets are, in fact, quite unique for the character, and for all others for that matter. However, a little reuse is not entirely a bad thing either, and it was done for good reason—clearly there just aren’t unique assets for the sylvari female in some very rare cases. But it is quite uncommon, the cases where reuse occurs are on some emotes that the players cannot trigger on demand, some sounds which have been made obsolete and are not in use, and some small animations used in a skill here and there and are on longer cooldown, such as the first portion of Engineer Rifle #4, Jump Shot (but not the second portion, the descent/landing), and yes, just a couple of the death sounds in the pool are reused. But there is no reuse in jumping sounds at all between human and sylvari female.

For the cases where reuse happens on player skills or common animations, something can likely be done at some point to make the sylvari female (and other race/genders, if the same is true for them) more unique from the human female, in terms of animation timing and the guttural sets chosen for the skills so that they aren’t reused. If you can think of any other cases than the ones you mentioned that you think are particularly egregious, do reply to this thread.

Thanks for taking the time to post about it.

Thanks for bringing this up. This led to a discovery of a set of criteria that would cause footsteps to not play for certain footwear. I’ve made a fix to some audio scripts which should recover it across the board, so this fix should get out to you soon.

It’s a shame that you’re experiencing this on such an expensive, prestigious piece of armor though! Hang in there.

Nike.2631:

I’d swear my Male Asura Engineer has a single Female Norn guttural sound accidentally cross-linked. He has one grunt I am certain is pulling from the wrong set.

If you can find a reliable way to get that mismatched sound to play, like a specific skill or action, then do tell. Something like that should definitely be fixed.

Sylvari females have and always have had their own vocal (guttural) set.

Each of the sounds for guttural types used between the various races are recorded by different actors but with similar deliveries—hence there is some stylistic resemblance between sylvari female and human female within a given action. Especially so between human and sylvari because they also share sound cue timings since they’re animated so similarly. But each player type definitely has a unique set of sounds.

Hope this clears things up!

Found the particular sound. Got introduced recently, but it’ll be removed as soon as possible.

Thanks for the reports leading to a speedy fix!

Could you be more specific about the types of actions you do with your female asura that causes the sound?

Narrowing this down will make it much more likely we can help make it right sooner rather than later.

Thank you for bringing this bug to our attention, and for explaining it so clearly. We were able to fix it internally. This will release with the next update, so stay tuned!

Cheers!

It’s a simple mistake of the wrong script getting attached to the hit for this weapon. Mistakes happen, and fortunately the mistake was not a dire one. There will be a fix for that coming in soon. However, it will not sound the same as it used to. There actually have been many requests to change the way the Mesmer greatsword #1 skill sounds, and it was much more than a bit too loud (also the sound was the exact same for each and every hit with no variety—that’s not interesting).

No promises on when the fix will come in since it’s not for me to decide, but there will be a fix for it.

Thanks for the reports, folks. Fortunately, the repro is about as simple as it gets. We’ll get a fix out just as soon as we can.

allindal.8406:

Cody Crichton.7516:

allindal.8406:

Cody Crichton.7516:

Worry not, a fix is inbound.

Don’t forget the unbreakable choir bell

What about the unbreakable choir bell? What needs to be remembered?

It’s very quiet, even with all sounds at max.

Sounds fine to me on my internal build. Either something changed for a recent update that made the bells quiet for you which has since been fixed internally, or nothing needs to change with the bells and they are plenty loud compared to the rest of the mix.

If the Master Volume and Player Instrument Volume sliders are to the far right and it still sounds quiet, then you may want to consider adjusting your hardware volume (speakers/headphones) and/or your game client audio up a bit at the system (OS) level.

allindal.8406:

Cody Crichton.7516:

Worry not, a fix is inbound.

Don’t forget the unbreakable choir bell

What about the unbreakable choir bell? What needs to be remembered?

Worry not, a fix is inbound.

News? You bet. We’re still working on it. Audio engine bugs are not always as simple to work out, but there are changes coming that should work toward ensuring stability, especially when heavy combat is involved.

Thank you for the reports.

Worry not, I assure you that we’re still in the process of making further optimizations to the audio engine.

Also, for the record, the sound card hasn’t got much to do with how sounds are cached and processed. Actually, that’s what the system memory and processor are for! The sound card merely facilitates playback to your listening device (speakers/headphones), and what receives input from a non-USB microphone if you’re using voice chat. Unless something is seriously wrong with your sound card, upgrading it isn’t going to help, and it definitely isn’t going to allow for more sounds to play or improve the results of how the audio engine handles individual sound files. That’s just not what sound cards do.

EDIT:

I appreciate that you looked for results on multiple machines, Alad QB. This not only helps you troubleshoot the problem, determining that your hardware isn’t to blame, but also helps lend credence to the fact that there are indeed still more optimizations to be made with our engine.

Thank you for your feedback. We’re always looking to optimize the audio engine and improve upon performance as well as the listening experience. We’re glad to hear that the latest changes are a step in the right direction.

As always, come on down to the audio forums if you encounter any issues with sounds suddenly dropping out and other audio performance quirks. The more details you bring with you, the more likely we can get issues sorted out quickly.

If what you are describing continues to happen after today’s release, we would love to know.

Thank you very much for posting this.

I identified what the problem was, and I’ve fixed the bug. The fix will be out in the next major update.

Apologies for all who are experiencing the nuisance of Ride the Lightning sounds playing so loud and over such a long distance.

Hello Xyonon,

We think we know what the remaining problems are with some sounds playing intermittently and expect to have a fix in by the next release.

Hi Circuitnerd. Please help answer a few questions so this can be looked into:

Does this happen with a particular PvP map, or all PvP maps?

Does this happen with every match that you play in maps that are affected?

When did this start occurring?

What profession are you?

Can you confirm that there either is or is not another Elementalist in the map when this occurs?

As I mentioned here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Meteor-Shower-Elementalist-Staff-Skill-5/

This is issue is known and will be fixed in the next update.

Again, thanks for listening and reporting!

As for the issue with Meteor Shower (and a plethora of other effects) no longer playing their sounds, it is currently fixed internally and should be back to normal on the next release.

Thanks for reporting!

In that case, since you haven’t got one, allow me to assure you that it’s indeed fixed.

I also recommend that you pick one up – if you’re at all musically inclined – ‘cause there’s a lot of fun songs to play. Cruise on by the audio discussion forums where there are gobs of songs that players have compiled with instructions on how to play them, and even some links to video demonstrations.

I earnestly invite you to log in to the game and find out for yourself!

Thanks for the report about some sounds no longer playing back correctly.

This problem is being looked into.

Hello everyone.

Thank you for voicing your concerns with the flute.

Again, we apologize for your struggles with this instrument after the latest build. I would like to reconfirm that it was never our intention to negatively impact songs you’ve been previously able to play or with new performances. The scenarios described above regarding extreme difficulty playing the same note back-to-back were not reproducible in-house or reported by play testers, even those with musical talent playing popular songs discussed in many other threads.

That said, there will be a fix for the problem, one that reverts functionality to the way it was before. Additionally, by popular request, the ability to stop the currently playing note will be moved to the ‘0’ key. This fix is currently targeted for release with the next Living World update. Thank you for your patience as we address your concerns.

I’d like to add that we are committed to providing a fun experience with each of the instruments and are always open to healthy, constructive feedback.

We’re looking into potential solutions to smooth out the responsiveness of the flute even more while also maintaining the functionality that was added in today.

Apologies for those who are having trouble playing the songs that were previously playable. However being able to add pauses (rests) to your songs and all the expressiveness that comes with that is very important. I assure you all that this was thoroughly tested, though there is always room for further improvement and refinement.

Please hang on to those instruments and continue to provide us with feedback!

Not to worry, this issue with Quip is infamous and is being looked into.

Thanks for bringing it up!

Mungrul.9358:

That bloody humming from the new jumping puzzle in Gendarran Fields can be heard from miles away and is REALLY irritating.

This has been fixed yesterday with a hotfix, so you may safely resume your jumping!

Heimdall, thank you for voicing your concerns with sound effects. While the Mesmer skill, Spatial Surge, still needs to be adjusted to be more enjoyable, other issues that you’ve brought up have been addressed in recent patches.

Specifically, sylvari females making high pitched noise when getting struck should no longer be happening—this was a corrupted sound file that has since been repaired.

Also, several Necromancer skills, including Staff skills, have had their sounds adjusted.

Hopefully you’ll no longer have to avoid playing the characters that you’d otherwise have enjoyed playing!

The sounds for this weapon were increased on a global level with the latest patch, but a client-side only change, such as a slider which only affects this weapon or weapons like it (there are scant few), is a much, much larger change that will require a lot of work.

However, it may yet be addressed in a future update.

Also, as this has been an ongoing issue, I figured I should mention that Necromancer skill sounds were adjusted with the latest patch, and hopefully they are much more enjoyable to listen to overall.

There are some known issues of sounds being unusually quieter than others with surround sound being the culprit, and they have always proven solvable via changing the configuration on the end-user side. However, I do not have a guide for troubleshooting the particular problems people are having.

If a surround sound system is suspected to be the culprit, I suggest temporarily substituting your surround sound for a stereo system (either two-speakers, or a pair of headphones) and, after properly setting that, checking the game sounds to find out of the mix is any better. If so, then your surround sound setup might not be mixing the surround sound channels properly and could need some adjusting.

Hi there, Yalora. Thanks for taking the time to give us some feedback about your experience with the Greatsaw. We’re aware that you experience the sounds of your Greatsaw far quieter than anyone else who has made contact about this issue, and that still needs a bit of troubleshooting. It will be looked into for a future release.

However, the sounds of this weapons will not be increased any further on a global level, as it is now quite audible under any normal circumstances.

ETA on this audio fix? Next major patch. Stay tuned!

Worry not, adorers of quaggans both large and small (but mostly small). Your plight is soon at an end! Their deep, frequent breathing will be fixed!

Since the look of the Predator had gotten changed from a plasma theme to a fiery theme, the sounds have been updated to follow suit. I hope you enjoy your flame rifle!

Have you tried restarting your client after switching the Audio language? The launcher has to download the audio files for the new language you’re switching to, and it will default to English until that has been done.

All dialogue VO in the game will then be transitioned to the new language (Both French and German are supported), and this will not just limit to the cinematics.

Hello everyone. Thank you for bringing up your thoughts about the chainsaw sounds for the Great Saw and Chain Sword weapon skins from Halloween.

Due to a bug, the sounds for this weapon were not playing originally, and this was fixed after the Wintersday content update. However, due to very popular demand, these sounds were turned down. See this thread for an example of some feedback that we received.

There have been concerns in this thread that the sounds are gone in their entirety, but internal testing has shown that this is not the case. While they are quieter now, they are audible at default volume levels except during intense combat, and the impact sounds for the weapon are also intact. That said, if you know of a way that the sounds for this weapon can be reliably and consistently shown to not cue, we are interested in that—please let us know with a detailed reply in this thread!

We hope you agree that erring on the side of caution is for the best.

As always, we thank you for feedback about issues like this which concern you, the players!

Interesting, so you are experiencing sound in the game, it is just very, very quiet.

This begs the question (and this will assume that you are running Windows 7):

While running Guild Wars 2, if you right-click the speaker icon on the Windows task bar and select “Open Volume Mixer,” does it show the volume level for Guild Wars 2 being drastically lower than the other volume levels? (See attached screenshot)

If so, turn that baby up!

If not, then another solution will have to be devised.

Hello there Nanorin. Thank you for the report. I’m sorry that you and your friends are having trouble with the sound in the game. Could you answer a few questions for me? Hopefully we can get to the bottom of it.

Did you ever have this problem before the patch?
Did you ever have sound in the game after the patch?
In the Sound Options, have you checked all of the volume faders to make sure that nothing is set to the far left?
Will sound come back if you move the Sound Quality slider in the Sound Options panel or click the “Restore Defaults” button?

Today’s patch notes did not mention it, but a fix was introduced for the issue where movement sounds from Ranger pets, Necromancer minions and Elementalists’ summoned elementals would on occasion fail to respect the Master Volume and Effect Volume faders in the Sound Options panel.

If anyone happens to encounter this issue from now onward, please reply to this thread with any more information.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to post about this very annoying issue!

Hello, and thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to post about the issue with all sylvari females “yipping” occasionally when they take damage. A bug was found with one of the sound files—yes, a bona fide bug and not a matter of taste. The problem was fixed in a previous patch. I believe the fix came through with the Wintersday content.

Everyone who was plagued by the issue, feel free to play your female sylvari characters again and let us know what you think!