Helldivers
Why ARE the Enemy sounds still bad?
Geniuen Question here
Don't mean to sound ungrateful or pissed of, I'm sure it's all very hard work and Idk much about Videogame Development or how the Technology behind it works. But why over a Year later do many of the Enemy units, especially the Heavies still have very bad Audio Cues?
-The Chargers Steps are nearly silent only it's grunts tells you it's there.
-The Berserkers Chainsaws are Silent
-Factory Striders and Bile Titans Steps are quieter then you'd think they be
-Tanks often move without Sound
-Leviathans often fire their canons without Sound
And so on. None of these Issues are new I think I saw posts about silent Berserkers in the first few Months of the Game. But it's not like Arrowhead can't do it. The Stingray is the PERFECT Example of good Sound Design and Audio cues but it's super inconsistent around the Enemy Board.
So why is that the Case and none of it is fixed yet?
Discussion
unironically? shit sound mixing
the sounds are all there in the game; its just that whoever was in charge of audio mixing decided 'lol, what sounds' and made them non-existent
I also don't know shit about programming, but I do know a bit about audio mixing.
Shouldn't these sound files just have an attached value that could be retroactively changed without much issue? They're all obviously attached to enemies and have cues and such, but the audio itself should have an independent value for volume that nothing else is dependent on.
What's different in this case?
nothing, and the aforementioned mod does exactly that, just remixes the audio, I dont even know if Arrowhead has it registered as an issue, unless maybe its intentional ?
thats what the mod does; it adjusts the sounds already present in-game to be louder as they should be. Not so soft it might as well not be there
This is correct, the sounds are easily fixed by someone just spending a couple hours changing the values of the sounds around, if even that long. I have no idea why it hasn't been fixed yet, its really simple
The funny thing is they don't need to spend time fixing them they can just download the mod themselves and put it into the game. Kinda odd they don't
Not sure, but its not always bad, like i can hear bile titians roaming from 200m away, but if ones on my ass its more silent than a librarians fart
I’ve noticed this as well, same thing on the bot front. In particular, if I’m coming up on a POI I can hear an idle hulk and often get a good idea of which direction/spot they’re in. However, if one’s running up behind me I rarely hear them.
It’s almost like the distance attenuation is reversed or something bizarre like that.
Enemy sounds are multiple times louder when you look at them than when you turn your back on them. I don't know why but I know that the charger sounds are audible when you look at one charging but become basically non-existant when you turn around.
I've only accumulated 530 hours since the release of the game, its a lot but it's also rookie compared to some. I have my critiques of portions of this game. I love it in and out and still find time to make sure I get at least one dive in per day.
This is by far the most unenjoyable part of the game. Specifically the chargers. Moving the camera around at all times to check your 6 is something that isn't always feasible, and it's at those critical moments the Charger with pillow slippers crushes you from off camera with zero warning of its approach.
I hope it's eventually addressed, until then the best you can do is circle your camera around at all times during hectic fights to try to avoid it.
This is by far the most unenjoyable part of the game.
Especially as a light-armor enjoyer. It's hard to skirmish and move positions when you are suddenly one-shot by a stealthing dump-truck sized bug.
But also as a light armor runner, I find that I rarely die even on superhell dives. So I think its alright to need to look 360° to make sure you are on point. I think the chaos of being swarmed and then unexpectedly hit by a charger can be part of the fun. The sound thing I agree with, but I dont think complaining about needing to keep your head on a swivel is anything more than a feature of gameplay
Usually i know a Charger is behind me thanks to the slight screen shake and the "crowd control" Vignette thats appears when theres danger really close by
I only have around 100 hours but that’s why you run around a bit. Try to group the enemies before engagement.
I had a factory strider sneak up on me last weekend. That should literally be impossible. The ground should increasingly shake the closer they get, and the noise should be a 10/10 on volume if you're near them.
Audio adjustments
AO being placed again in the pipeline to apply to mobile models and vegetation, as an advanced graphical option
FSR 3.1
FSR frame gen
DLSS 4
All of these have been done on this engine and can relatively easily be done. My hope is that at least with the upscaler and frame gen stuff nixxes adds them as upscaler options to all applicable versions during their work on the Xbox port.
Because aliens hate freedom.
This is always the answer
Im a botdiver and holy fuck, i am scared of hulks sneaking upon me more than the occasional joel shenanigan dropping two striders and 3 tanks.
After I was recommended these mods that improve the sound, my God... This game NEEDS a sound correction urgently, it's more important than new content
I don't like a lot of the guns sounds too. The strength of the mixing is all over the place, and the volume of some rifles goes down to nothing based on ammo count. It's weird when a rifle goes almost completely silent when it still has 5 rounds left. In fact it's weird it goes quiet at all. The slight plink is OK I guess, but still overdone.
O feel like they turn the sound down so you can hear the tracers higher pitch click but for some reason it applies to every gun
Arrowhead has a lot of cool realism-focused design features, but the annoying "your gun starts to sound different when it's close to empty" annihilates my immersion constantly
I love the feature and would hate for them to change it.
The year is 2184. They have the technology to make the last few rounds in a mag sound different
It sounds alright on most guns, but there are a few it's really bad.
an on/off toggle in settings would give everyone what they want
That on/off toggle would somehow break some other parts of the game
bing bang boom plip plap poof pff pff fffffff <charger footstep.wav>
When sound channels are getting swamped it seems to show however I've only really noticed it on chargers, one time I don't do a sweep when reloading/360 cam spin... BOOM surprise ass ramming lul charger with ninja shoes on.
I commented about this on the discord and was told not being able to hear audio cues in the game was a "skill issue", some of the dumbest motherfuckers in the galaxy inhabit that server I swear.
More than double (97,789) the people actively online right now (47,128) have downloaded a mod to fix audio issues, in a game that has awards for sound design.... But you know skill issue on my part.
We're talking about Arrowhead rn, bug fixing isn't their forte
Ps5 can't use mods. I'm permanently stuck with a stalker that sounds like a jet and a bile titan that is as silent as the pink panther
Has the sound ever been good? I feel as though chargers have been sneaking up behind me since the start of all this.
I just consider the mod as essential now after trying it.
Don't forget bots not doing their patrol chant if you aren't the host.
Even when I host they still don't do the patrol chants anymore.
Imo either bad programming on Arrowheads part or their use of a discontinued 3D game engine platform called Autodesk Stingray.
Fatshark with the vermintide and darktide games uses the same platform and also has issues with quality assurance.
I agree that tanks and leviathans are silent killers, but I must have a really good pair of headphones because I've never had a problem hearing any of the other enemies.
i don't know why they have this problem they've tweaked the sound on rocket devestators at least 3 times they change gun sounds and they make them sound great.
so they are aware of the sounds and they have good sound people. so why indeed do we still have Ninja chargers that people have been complaining about since the beginning?
Midnight mode.
Honestly I can deal with the bugs … but this has never been addressed by the devs and it drives me up a wall. Being blindsided not by incompetent playing but incompetent game audio design.
I can’t have my head on a swivel every 3 seconds. If I’m focusing on one line of sight and I HEARD a tank approaching I could react accordingly!
Even with the audio mod the sounds are still garbage. Better than nothing but what should I expect from Arrowhead? They don’t care about fixing their game.
Can we stop this stupid "bleh Arrowhead bad. They clearly dont care >:[" take?
Hes somewhat not wrong though, AH do seem to have some sort of an issue of not fixing certain core issues until it simmers long enough where it becomes unavoidable, frustrating and/or gamebreaking when it happens.
Same reason the game still uses FSR 1 upscaling from like the last century. The devs suck
You said the devs suck and you get upvotes. Meanwhile I said the devs are on vacation and got down voted like crazy. Reddit is soooooo weird. :)
Although I do completely agree, I love Bile Titan footsteps. I feel like they work well. I can often instantly identify one is near by a single footstep. It’s unique and distant and booming, though I don’t notice it in the midst of every fight. Every time, it comes across as a “water shaking in a cup” moment and it’s haunting to watch them move past. Or God forbid, have to hide from one as it patrols.
The musical cue is also fantastic. As soon as the music ramps up, you know there are titans. It’s not a guarantee that the music cue happens but it’s always very good.
I can hear sprinting hulks okay but outside of those two, enemy sounds are quite poor. Chargers just walking are almost completely silent and it’s kind of ridiculous. The charge I can usually hear, walking? No. And they’ll often just walk up behind you for a goddamn assassination.
Why are the bile titan and charger getting freaky?
If I had to guess they were worried about too many sounds going on at once in an already very chaotic game. But yeah, it is still pretty bad
It seems that audio only becomes loud whenever youre facing whats in front of you too. Anything behind you just gets muted or reduced volume, even with this mod on (the mod helps, but just a little, at least im a bit more aware of the GIANT FUCKING BILE TITAN SPITTING RIGHT BEHIND ME)
I blame tinnitus. It's totally not service related.
I like to imagine that the Music of Democracy is just so loud that we can't hear the enemy
But also this could just be coping
So I have done a little testing, and now that I am house sitting for my parents, I feel as though I have confirmed my hypothesis.
The sound data the game is sending to your headphones/speakers is at such a high bandwidth that it has to cut out some sounds. On my normal TV speakers there will be sfx that cut in and out. The same thing happens on my PS5 headphones. When I tested my Corsair HS80 headphones the amount of sfx and other sound cues was dramatically lessened. Then, I got to my parents house with a very nice 5.1 surround sound system. Changed the settings on my PS5 to the AV amp sound preset, and I didnt have a single issue with sound cutting out or dropping off.
TL;DR: Too much water (sound data) going down the stream for the waterwheeel (your listening device) to handle.
i got snuck up on by a factory strider while doing a terminal, no music on at al
What sites do you recommend for sounds? 🙂
remastered heavy and remastered chaff.
Ive seen the remastered mod footage and AH should absolutely implement something similar or hire the creator. Things like this, optimization, and bug fixes, should be the priority over content for a short time imo. We had a huge wave of content, i think we should improve whats here instead of piling on more. However im sure with the xbox change that takes priority and will bring its own host of problems and content updates to entertain the new playerbase
This is why I turn off music :/
Maybe I am naive but when a modder in their unpaid free time can do a better job than the studio that sold like 10 million copies, there is no excuse.
Idk why so many games have terrible sound mixing these days. For example in Space Marine 2 the chainsword barely made any sound...like are you kidding me? Do the devs have no idea what we want? I wanna hear my marine tear apart the alien scum in front of me.
Yep, i am actually pissed off. There's so much good sound design hidden with miniscule volume and ridiculously loud music.
Same thing with smoke and flashes hiding half of the information on screen
I’d wanna see more voices and voice lines for helldivers tbh
The sound overhaul for Chaff and Heavy are god tier.
I’ve actually managed to hear invis stalkers and turn around way before it could shred me.
It takes a bit to get used to as everything sounds distinct but no longer do I feel like my ears are half clogged.
WHAT? I cant hear you over the Sound of Freedom im dispensing.
- A Explosion Specialist Diver who constantly plays Rock and Metal music in the Background.
If nobody got me, I know chaff units + heavy units remastered got me
If you ain’t looking at it you ain’t hearing it. Unless it’s the wasp. You’re hearing that shit like it’s next to you.
keep posting and upvoting these until arrowhead take action
nothing else will work
Personally, I feel like the sound mixing just needs to get fixed. There’s no reason I should think the bugs chilling at a POI chittering 100m away are right next to me, then never hear a charger on my ass until I’m dead.
because we don't wear any ear protection. all helldivers are deaf within the first 5 minutes of their first dive. try hearing footsteps over a 500 kg or a machine gun emplacement.
Factory striders should have a horn that sounds like a War of the Worlds tripod.
(On a related note, Harvesters should have a high pitched auren when they're agro'd)
because terminids and automatons got the stealth warbond before we got a stealth warbond
Because AH said only around 12 enemies make sound at any one time based on a lot of factors like camera angles, proximity, enemy type, aggro, activity, etc otherwise the sound design would be a mess
My guess is that the camera angle is weighted too heavily so many sounds we’d expect to be loud are filtered out when the camera isn’t pointed close enough
Does the console versions had mod support?
No they dont.
Oh darn
W-what exactly is going on between that Bile Titan and Charger?
Probably less of a priority to fix the audio than the bugs. Hope they do get to it someday
I want to try mods but I’m on Ps5 😔
This makes a huge difference if you were thinking about using it
So why is that the Case and none of it is fixed yet?
Because it's summer time and the devs are all on their government mandated vacation.
EDIT: I'm being down voted because what I said is true! lol! :D Never change reddit!
This has been an issue since launch
Some of that has been, sure. Berserkers at launch were completely silent the squeal sound they make now was added after launch. Factory striders weren't in game at launch. Hulks were quiet but now you can hear their footsteps. Quasars used to have charge up and fire sounds, but now they don't.
So no, not all of this has been an issue since launch. And, it's not getting fixed right now because the devs are on vacation.
I mean, they could've fixed the ones present before going to vacation since it's been over a year for some? They don't have to do them all at once.
You are being downvoted because most of these have been issues from day 1 (launch and being added) and the devs haven't been on summer break for over a year
Yeah, and they haven't been fixing other issues for the last year?
Look, we all know that Helldivers 2 is a buggy mess, I don't disagree with that because it's true. But they've fixed other bugs, like being unable to reload weapons, instead of the sound bites. That's also true. Sweden mandates that companies give their workers a minimum of 25 days off per year, that's true. AH employees said that most of the dev team would be off work during July, that's also true. Devs cannot fix bugs while they're on vacation, that's also true.
And Redditors hate the truth, that's also true.
So, like I said, I'm being down voted for posting the truth. That's also a true statement.
Saying "my statements are true", multiple times, is not a defense. The audio has been badly mixed for a year.
You're being downvoted because you're being ignorant. You ever developed a game?
I don't need to be a game dev to know that people on vacation can't code.
I don't need to be a game dev to know that AH employees are on vacation right now.
I don't need to be a game dev to know that Sweden mandates that all companies give employees 25 days of annual time off.
I don't need to be a game dev to read patch notes and realize that the devs, for whatever reason, chose to fix other bugs instead of these bugs.
I don't need to be a game dev to have been on reddit for over a decade and seen typical redditors down vote proven facts time and time and time again for over a decade.
Because its a horde shooter. If the sounds bug out you get quatrillions and your ears spill blood.
Nah thats a bad excuse. Look at darktide and vermintide, those are horde games and are excellent at letting you know that an enemy threat is nearby. Every enemy has a distinct sound.
Adding on L4D/L4D2, RoR2 and DRG as well.
Yeah, the remastered units mods are lifesavers. There are some units that I hear now that I didn't even know made noises. Tanks, Harvesters, Impalers just to name a few. Now I can actually identify when there is one nearby and usually what their general direction is.
Absolute night and day difference, I could never go back.
It's funny how early on in the game's life, I and others requested that Berserkers get terrifying chainsaw revving sounds when they aggro on you. Turns out that the mod reveals that they do and were just that quiet.
I wanted to try them out but are Mods like....ok?
This is still an online game so im worried about accidentally getting banned
Mods are fine for audio/visual for the most part. I use the A-10 strafing run and laser audio mods and haven't had any problems for months.
And the Gatling gun to a CWIS
Miku miku BEAAAAAAAAAAAMMM
Client-side mods are usually fine AFAIK. Lots of people use armor mods
To answer your question, mods are ok. They’re all(?) client side so they don’t interfere with the server and you’re the only one who will see/notice any difference. I could be wrong (and I’m sure someone will correct me if I am) but I believe AH even came out and said while they can’t/don’t officially support mods they like them and aren’t banning anyone who uses them (outside of cheats ofc).
best place to start getting into HD2 mods?
Nexus Mods is a great start, that's where you'll find the audio remaster mods, and the mod manager to install them.
Thanks! I'm on it
Nexusmods.
nexus; be sure to check out helldivers 2 mod manager, it's really simple and nifty for just dropping mod .rars in and hitting deploy, unchecking/removing them if they break with updates is just as ez
you can use vortex without issue, but HD2MM is so perfectly minimal and crafted just for HD2 that i have no issue dedicating an icon for the .exe next to the game
Client side mods such as audio, visual or model changes are perfectly fine, as long as the mod your using only effects you. I’m pretty sure the devs indirectly said this themselves.
Mods that effect the game such as god mode, unlimited ammo, currency spawning etc however are a big no-no. These will get you banned.
Any way to ban hackers? Run one with unlimited health
Just move on with your life assuming democracy protects some more than others.
Officially, AH have stated that mods are at the users own risk. There's always the maybe chance of anticheat picking up on altered files and banning the user, which they can't undo (for some reason). However, I haven't seen anyone actually get banned, so unless you're exceptionally unlucky, you should be fine.
Audio-visual is totally fine. I had the same concern, but now have a couple mods that I absolutely adore. Highly recommend Chaff/Heavy Enemies Remastered and Unified Helldiver Armory
I have mine modded to replace everything with Halo assets. I'm running around MasterChief while my guns and my cruiser are from Halo.
As long as they're not cheats, and only client aide things, you're good.
Mind linking those for me?
I have modded the SHIT out of helldivers and haven't had a single problem(I have like 60 mods)
as long as it doesn’t alter gameplay making it easier or affecting other players in any way. i have a full modded game with many qol improvements in audio or models
I've been using mods for several months already (and so are counties more people) and I'm still playing, so no need to worry.
Been using mods since before the Creek. Only audio and visual ones for new armors and it's totally fine.
devs literally endorsed client side mods
Yeah, and if the anti-cheat has a stroke and bans you for no reason, despite using something that's supposedly safe, neither Arrowhead or the community will back you up, and you just lost hundreds or thousands of hours of progress, as well as permanent loss of access to the game.
Compare this to a game like Deep Rock Galactic which fully embraces mods, where you never have to fear losing permanent access to a game you purchased over something so idiotic.
I realize there are people who have been modding since launch and haven't been banned. But if the anti-cheat suddenly one day decides it doesn't like you, you have no defense, no appeal, nothing. That's unreasonable.
Either Arrowhead needs to remove the anti-cheat completely (which does absolutely nothing to prevent players cheating) or we need an official statement that guarantees they will fix our accounts if wrongfully banned.
Do you happen to know how to turn off specific audio in the mods?
I really want to hear units, but it feels like Stalkers are trivialised when you can hear them decloak 500m away. Really goes from "AAAAAAA STALKERS" to "Ah. Stalkers."
At least for the HD2 Arsenal mod loader there is an edit option that lets you toggle individual parts of mods.
Just looking at the Chaff Units Remastered you can toggle it off and on but there isn't any stalker specific toggle. It's either all off or all on.
Edit: I should clarify, you can toggle all the sounds for the specific faction or none of them. There aren't any unit specific toggles for Stalkers.
Yeah, the Arsenal was what I was using, and those were my findings.
Was just hoping I was too blind to spot some unit specific option :<
Unfortunate. Stalkers scare the piss out of me so I'll take every advantage I can get. It honestly scares me more hearing them chittering and cloaking because it means they are looking for someone, probably me.
For some reason they always break the game for me. They'll work fine the first time I launch the game, but after that the game always shuts down after I hit play. uninstalling the mod and verifying my files solves it, but it is sad
That's pretty odd. I've never had issues with mods unless the game gets an update that possibly breaks them. I disable them for a few days until updates to the mods are made and enable them again.
I can't say I've ever heard anything about them breaking between sessions and validating files fixes them.
yeah it's weird, because I have the Miku beam mod and Konosuba hellbomb mod and those work fine. But it's only the heavy units remastered mod that breaks it, I've tried downloading it a few more times and I always have to uninstall and verify files
How do you install these manually? I really don’t want to use a mod manager for a game that doesn’t officially support mods
Couldn't tell you. I've never installed mods manually for any game. I almost always use a community built Mod Manager because there's usually unique quirks to integrating mods for every game. Sorry.
I'm sure if you searched around there are probably videos or demonstrations on YouTube or on a modding discord but I couldn't give you much more advice than that.
There might even be directions on the mod page itself for how to properly install it manually. I know some authors include those occasionally because some people do prefer manual modding.