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Can CCP comment on why the Advanced Audio Settings needed a change?


At least Aura had some reasoning behind it, with the NPE and the new dialogue. But I can't seem to work out why the Advanced Audio needed changes, it's not like any new sounds were added? And I'm sure if CCP were doing a massive audio overhaul, we would have known about it ;)


It's been a saying forever, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". And again, we have updates.eveonline and SISI for a reason, I suggest these get used correctly and allow the players to know EXACTLY what's going on and why it's going on, and allow us to explore and provide feedback BEFORE they get implemented into TQ.



Come on CCP Antiquarian, I thought you said you had learnt from the GONG! experience ;)

CCP, I am severly disappointed by you culling the advanced audio settings.

The feedback you got was very very critical of CCP changing the advanced audio settings, yet you persisted in implementing the change.

And additionally once again you f***ed over all wormholers too, tyvm, we really appreciate how much you like our paid subscriptions .... The rationale you stated was that only 9% of all players used the advanced sound settings, but did you get statistics of how many of these players reside in wh space ?

If anything the audio options need more abilities to customize the sound experience and not less.

Eve is a game that had inspired passion in myself for the game, but I get the feeling CCP does not really care anymore about these passionate players. You implement changes that nobody needs and nobody cares for and remove functionality that people do need.

The long asked for acls for corp bookmarks or the ability to have alliance bookmarks is just one more symptom for your neglect of player's wished.

If this were just one more game then I could not care less, but this is eve, which is a game that I have not just played 3 weeks and lost interest, but a game that has kept my attention for 3+ years.

#truestory

CCP made a mistake in removing these sound options. Now please just be adults, say mea culpa and asap put the old advanced sound settings back.

Don't thank me. I am just the guy letting you all know what's happening and helping the Audio team sort through the feedback.

I've added the additional comments to the list for consideration.

Dear CCP, like many others I think you made a huge mistake.

First, I've discovered that I very much enjoy living in wormholes and because of that I want to be fully aware of everything that is going on around me. That's why I d-scan every second, checking constantly if I'm alone or not and why when I'm near a wormhole I have my headphones on to make sure I hear an enemy jumping through.
I'm far from the best wormholer, as we in our corp say "Not good at much, but we f*****g try", but I'm a player like everybody else.

The facts are:
I care about the sound of wormholes but now I'm forced to hear stargate sounds, station interior sounds, stations exterior sounds, planets sounds and atmosphere sounds.
I want to hear above all the warping sound then explosions and then modules but now I'm forced to have them all at the same level.
I like to hear the hacking sound so that I have an immediate feedback to what I click but now I'm forced to hear the map and ship tree sounds too.
I need to hear the locking sound but now I'm forced to hear the Eve Store sounds, the radial menu sound and some others.
I might want to hear warnings at different levels because sometimes I don't care about shields but I do about armor or vice versa or some other setting but now I'm forced to hear them all at the same level.
I want to hear the sound of a 3rd party warp more than a wormhole activation but now they are the same.

The bottom line is that I play Eve not for simplicity but for the complexity (not chaos) that I can explore, like a lot of other players.

So CCP, don't remove something just because is not frequently used, because when a player will search which slider commands the sound that he/she wants to decrease and realize that modifies a lot of other useful sounds, he/she will hate you every time the lost sound would have helped him/her accomplish something or would have saved him/her.

Honestly I would like more sounds to become customizable, because if you think about it the sounds of Eve give the player crucial informations and having something like an overview for sounds would make many players feel like CCP listens to them, instead of feeling like CCP is muting the players' slider.

We need more not less control !!!! I used the advanced sliders all the time and loved the versatility it was like having a Swiss army knife for the sound. If people some people didn't want to use it they didn't have to. There are some sounds in EVE I just don't want to hear!! But now I have to if I want to hear sounds that are important to me. I know a lot of players that turn their sound off completely just so they don't have to listen to some of the annoying sounds. Like station interiors and the probe scanning map ventilation shaft background noise. Keep the option to turn these down so we can enjoy the game.

Your programmers should just do their work and not choose the easy way out.

I have invested quite a bit of time, customizing eve to my tastes, making it "my eve". I honestly don't care about a voice telling "Warp Drive Engaged" I know that, I just engaged it. I don't need a voice informing me of my docking status, I flipping know, I just told my ship to dock.

What I do need to hear, and hear clearly, are wormhole "splashes" and even more important, when I'm hacking cans, I can't hear the warp "pops" of other players. I used to depend on that little "pop".

Eve is a game of nuances, nuances which keep one alive. Every tiny little thing in Eve helps or hinders ones very survival in the game.

Visually, Eve is hard to beat, it's quite stunning, and it's audio used to be just as stunning if not more so. However, with the loss of customization in sound, the auditory aspect of Eve has suffered greatly.

Just put the audio aspect of Eve back the way it was, I was just getting it adjusted to suit me and in the matter of a few hours, my hard work went the way of the dodo bird.

Easier rarely means "better". It doesn't seem wise to offend 9% of ones subscriber base, of course of that 9% probably less the half actually care and of that half that care, an even smaller percentage will take the time to offer any constructive criticism, so tread carefully CCP, and give us what we want.

EDIT: In advance, pardon the wall of text...

It's OK to try new things, it really is. However, when a new thing fails utterly, the rational and intelligent response is to drop it and go back to what DOES work (progress is not achieved by pursuing dead ends!) Ie. please roll back the audio settings, plain and simple. To now spend time and effort trying to hammer a flawed concept into some vague semblance of ADEQUACY is merely throwing good effort after bad. I think I speak for a lot of us when I say we're not looking for a PARTIAL fix - it was good how it was, and anything less than how it was would be, well (pardon the circular logic), LESS - ie. inferior and inadequate.

The whole "we have now added this slider and that slider, testable on Singularity" thing smacks of exactly that - trying to hang onto a failed idea and force it to work. How does it make any sane sense to now painstakingly work back toward where we were, and likely stop partway there, instead of simply putting it back where it was? Surely it would be FAR simpler to simply reinstate the previously extant code (which surely you have archived, right? If not, I don't have the words, at least polite ones, to express what I would think...) How to make the most people possible happy with the least effort possible? Roll back the advanced audio interface changes.

Here's a simple fact: EVE is driven by its player-base, right? And that player base is comprised of a multitude of play styles and priorities. To attempt to generalise everyone's style to just a few templates would be akin to applying a ****ing horoscope to the issue - utterly absurd. Yes, wormholers have a few main priorities - but that doesn't mean there aren't some who like station interior sounds while some (most?) don't; likewise, some will want jumpgate sounds while some won't; some are shield-tankers and need the low-shield warning while others armour-tank and need it less; and this isn't even accounting for players with hearing or cognitive impairments who may have their own special ways to bring what they need to the surface. UI clicks have been pointed to as a major nuisance - but while allowing us to control it is good, it doesn't mean that other similarly annoying or important options can now be omitted.

It is absurdly fallacious to think that one may apply a set of cookie-cutters to the vast diversity of EVE players. Oh, and here's another sort of player: the sort who in fact actively enjoys the specific act of fine-tuning his/her audio-visual experience.

To selectively reintroduce only the perceived "most needed" sliders is inevitably going to leave many (perhaps most) people dissatisfied - the only way to make everyone (or as close as possible) happy, is to go ALL THE WAY - all the way back to how it was. This should not be seen as "retrograde" - change for its own sake is NOT progress - progress involves IMPROVEMENT. Also, if (as some have suggested) it's an issue of pride, then please get over that foolishness ASAP! When someone is "big enough" to admit and correct a mistake, my respect for that person INCREASES, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Reverting to the previous state will not make you "look weak" or foolish or what-not (to some of us it would, in fact, be praiseworthy) - however, persisting in pursuing a flawed decision WILL be perceived as mulish obstinacy, at best (and likely far worse.) From a decision theory standpoint, investing further development in a stunted interface makes no sense and is a losing proposition, plain and simple.

Getting bogged down in the specifics is losing sight of the forest for the trees at best, or an active misdirection at worst. Some of us aren't distracted or fooled by such devious, deceptive shenanigans.

So if CCP are unhappy that only 9% of players use the advanced settings, why not produce a handy informative video showing some of the possible benefits of using that feature? There's something to benefit any player that uses sound.

But, "manual upkeep of the code yields more defects on the development side than the usage merits" - so RIP instead of trying to increase usage??? General booing and hissing from over here.

Of that 9%, I wonder what fraction live in WH space. For me, this loss of control is either maddening or dangerous. Audio polling is life.
It's still a nice game but I can't play it like I used to.