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Advanced Audio Settings Changes

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Bruce Warhead
Incursion Citadel Network
#21 - 2017-05-08 16:38:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Bruce Warhead
Dang i really want my locking sound but not those other UI sounds :(

:(
http://i.imgur.com/BRNznV6.png
Quickload
Sniggerdly
#22 - 2017-05-08 16:46:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Quickload
ARGH! NO!

The highly granular controls are GREAT. Why? Because specific sounds are just straight-up obnoxious, either in terms of their content (station interior/exterior mumbo jumbo, Sansha incursion) or loudness (jumping a gate, warp tunnel) and need to be attenuated - but others are fine or are a very important source of information regarding what is happening around one's ship (cyno effects, wormhole/gate activation, warp-in "bump" sfx)

Now that you've opted to de-granularize the sfx, the user is now left to wonder which sounds fall into which category, and if they wish to attenuate or emphasize a specific sound, a bunch of other sounds will go along for the ride, perhaps undesirably.

Has it occurred to you that you're putting too much stock into blind metrics which ignore context? Maybe most people are fine with volumes, generally speaking? Perhaps it's the UI and people might be put off with a WALL OF SLIDERS, but to those who want to be surgical in how the client emits audio, these are a boon.

Please do not remove this. A better solution would be to replace those panes in the options menu with the simplified sliders, but have an "Advanced Audio Prefs" button which takes you to a sub-menu thatcontains the granular settings. You get the best of both worlds and those who don't wish to hear station gibberish sfx all day won't have to sacrifice hearing more desirable sounds just so they don't get driven crazy.
Amarak Valerii
#23 - 2017-05-08 16:50:13 UTC
will the Inactive Client Muting receive a similar simplification?

(somewhat unrelated) from the Inactive Client Muting which is the appropriate checkbox for 3rd party warp and gate/hole activation?

Think for yourself. Don't be sheep!
Niraia
Starcakes
Cynosural Field Theory.
#24 - 2017-05-08 17:50:32 UTC
♥?

♥
Nova Valentis
No Overly Valuable Assets
#25 - 2017-05-08 18:53:42 UTC
I use the sliders, i like the sliders. Everytime i see a lot of options in a game it gets +10 for individual customizability.

Don't downgrade from something great please! Don't become one of those games that wants to be from ages 9-90!
Nova Valentis
No Overly Valuable Assets
#26 - 2017-05-08 18:56:07 UTC
I solved it! Have both! Show the new options on default and have a little checkbox with "show advanced settings" or something like that on the bottom.
GENT
The Meta Cartel
#27 - 2017-05-08 19:26:31 UTC
CCP Antiquarian wrote:
Greetings, Capsuleers! This post will discuss the changes coming out for the Audio settings of EVE Online.


In 2014, we released Kronos which provided players with in-depth sound customization options in the form of Advance Audio Settings. We introduced that change because we wanted our players to have more control when choosing what they personally prefer to hear in the game - especially when playing with many clients at the same time - and also because we wanted to encourage the experience of EVE Online's unique soundscape.

The Advanced Audio Settings have been a partial success, functioning as intended but not having all the desired effects. We did indeed make the audio side of the game more flexible for our players, introducing some 30 different sliders for many possible audio mixing scenarios. Despite that customization, however, only a handful of players ultimately ended up using these customization options. Client settings logging reveals that around 9% of total EVE players are using the Advance Audio Settings menu at all. Of them, only a third (3% of all EVE players) are using each individual slider. A large majority of the 9% are only using one or two sliders in the Audio Customization menu. Some are only using sliders for elements they've disabled via the normal Audio settings.

Via survey, self-reporting, and focused testing, it became clear that complexity is the most likely reason for this lack of engagement with the menu options. New players confronted with the already gargantuan EVE Online options menu find the list of sliders daunting, and manual upkeep of the code yields more defects on the development side than the usage merits. Additionally, upkeep of the existing system when upgrading our middle-ware and adding new sounds to EVE is somewhat cumbersome. Frequently it is unclear where a sound should be included, or how to link new sound triggers into the existing system. We are dedicated to empowering EVE players, but in this instance simplification seemed better for both players and developers.

With that in mind, in order to make the menu more inviting for everyone and clear up valuable interface space (not to mention developer hours) we have decided to simplify the Audio Customization menu greatly. This will require adjustment for many of the 9% that have been using the existing sliders, but we've taken steps to minimize that disruption by shifting and grouping the various sounds according to usage and type. The names of the regular Volume Level settings (the UI, Music, Speech, World and Master sliders) are not being changed but some of the old Advanced sliders are being diverted into those controls. For example, Aura's voice will now be controlled by the Speech Volume slider.

The names and functions of the Advanced Sliders change as listed below:

New Sliders:
Atmosphere
Jump Activation
Secondary Interfaces
Ship Effects
Ship Ambience
Turret Volume
Warning Sounds

Old Slider -> Appears under New Slider:
Turret volume -> Turret Volume
Impacts -> Turret Volume
Stargates -> Atmosphere
Wormholes -> Atmosphere*
Jump Activation -> Jump Activation
Crimewatch -> (UI Sound Level)
Explosions -> Ship Effects
Engine.MWD.AB -> Ship Ambience
Station Exterior -> Atmosphere
Station Interior -> Atmosphere
Modules -> Ship Effects
Ship Ambience -> Ship Ambience
Warping Effect -> Ship Effects
3rd Party warp -> Jump Activation
Map and Ship Tree Vol -> Secondary Interfaces
Locking -> (UI Sound Level)
EVE store -> (UI Sound Level)
Planets -> Atmosphere
UI Click -> (UI Sound Level)
Radial Menu -> (UI Sound Level)
UI Interaction -> Secondary Interfaces
Aura -> (UI Speech Level)
Hacking -> Secondary Interfaces
Shield Warning -> Warning Sounds
Hull Warning -> Warning Sounds
Ship Damage Warnings -> Warning Sounds
Cap Warning -> Warning Sounds
Atmosphere -> Atmosphere
Music Dungeons -> (Music Level)
Music General -> (Music Level)

* This indicates general wormhole atmosphere. The wormhole activation sound is controlled by the Jump Activation slider.

We continue to investigate ways to improve this system, including modifying which features are controlled by which sliders and adjusting for popular requests, so do not hesitate to comment on the forums and make your own noise across New Eden. We look forward to streamlining the process of customization for all capsuleers and hopefully bumping that 9% up so that more players can experience all that EVE has to offer.

Fly free!


Under these settings I will now have to not hear hacking so that I don't have to listen to the submarine sounds when I hit d-scan every 2 seconds. It also means I won't be able to hear aggression or locking if I don't want to have to listen to thousands of annoying tiny clicks as I mouse over things. Fantastic. Why don't we just start "simplifying" the interface too; Just jam every window into the overview on tabs. I guess I'm part of the percentage of players that doesn't make a difference, but I wanted my displeasure on record.

Watch my stream on twitch for small gang PVP and Exploration content in 0.0
SerratedX
End-Game
#28 - 2017-05-08 19:54:07 UTC
CCP Antiquarian wrote:
Greetings, Capsuleers!
Via survey, self-reporting, and focused testing, it became clear that complexity is the most likely reason for this lack of engagement with the menu options.


Who the hell did you survey? Empire carebears?

This change is a bad one. DO NOT TAKE MY OPTIONS AWAY!
Paige Booker
Ministry of War
Amarr Empire
#29 - 2017-05-08 21:16:56 UTC
Gonna miss having only wormhole jump sounds up while stargate is down. I don't need to hear loud gates when I'm just going to the market.
Martin Vanzyl
EVE University
Ivy League
#30 - 2017-05-08 21:36:44 UTC
Quote:

Locking -> (UI Sound Level)...
UI Click -> (UI Sound Level)...


Now if we want to hear the locking sounds... including when its finished (a sound that's famous, heck you use it on the intro sequence of the o7 Show)... we have to subject ourselves to the annoying xylophone of the mouseover UI Click as our cursor moves over the UI. Welp, guess we'll have to do without now.

Oh, and PLEASE, for the love of our ears, give us a DSCAN ping sound slider! 'DONG DONG!'

Altrue
Exploration Frontier inc
Tactical-Retreat
#31 - 2017-05-08 23:01:37 UTC
Please retain the third party warp as its separate slider as its very much useful in itself as its own thing...

Also please stop dumbing down the game under the pretense of statistics. Are you counting active accounts or inactive accounts? It would sure be easy to include every single account ever and say "oh look only a fraction does X and Y". And even if it is, what of it? Even if those stats were perfectly accurate, you're still being disrespectful to 9% of your playerbase, nothing to be proud of really.

Nobody has ever stopped playing a game because "there are too many sound options", that'd be stupid. The mere idea that people would not engage because they see too many options that are even greyed out by default would be very weird. And even if these options were actually having a negative impact, then I guess that you could leave them in, but hide them completely instead of greying them out when the advanced sound options are disabled...

Overall I see once again poor excuses to what basically amounts to lazyness. Not cool :'(

Signature Tanking Best Tanking

[Ex-F] CEO - Eve-guides.fr

Ultimate Citadel Guide - 2016 EVE Career Chart
Max Deveron
Deveron Shipyards and Technology
Citizen's Star Republic
#32 - 2017-05-08 23:12:16 UTC
WHAT IN THE HELL???

I personally enjoy the sliders because i can turn off/down the things i do not need/use as much per account/character per playstyle/location.

Further I must protest about a survey, i never received any damn notification anywhere about such a survey.
If you are talking about just new players or some stranger focus group that will never play the game, then you are whacked in the head.
First you took away the ability to customize our own UI colors (slider bars) fro generic Faction based garbage.
Now this,

YOU HAD BETTER START TALKING TO VETERANS AND VETERANS ONLY WHEN IT COMES TO CHANGES LIKE THIS.
Xerxes Fehrnah
The Fallout Shelter
#33 - 2017-05-09 00:56:45 UTC  |  Edited by: Xerxes Fehrnah
CCP Antiquarian wrote:

Stargates -> Atmosphere
Wormholes -> Atmosphere*
Station Exterior -> Atmosphere
Station Interior -> Atmosphere
Planets -> Atmosphere
Atmosphere -> Atmosphere


I play with station interiors muted, but all of these other sounds audible. When my alt is docked up, I don't want to hear station interiors while I am out in space on my other account.

So now my only way to silence stupid station noises is to lose all of the other cool atmosphere noises? WHY?!?

Why are you making audio controls less granular? We have been asking for the opposite from you for a long time. What we were asking for was for video controls to be as detailed as audio controls.

How is this change in any way something good for the players? This looks like something a developer came up with to simplify a bunch of if/then statements in some code where 32 checks were done and make it only 5 checks.

This change falls under "Do you even watch the show?" (Galaxy Quest reference)
Ruby Gnollo
#34 - 2017-05-09 04:36:17 UTC
I really wonder : nobody at CCP knows 3rd party warp & lock sounds are critical pour low-attention farmers ?

I have no problem with the idea of CCP trying to go after farming, but this would definitely be quite a game changer, and would prolly be better done with a more explicit communication.

Or is it just plain ignorance ?

NB: Some nice corps offer free basic Eve training, please consider joining the courses.
Klng Star
Goobies Inc.
#35 - 2017-05-09 08:52:18 UTC  |  Edited by: Klng Star
Does this fix the issue where you cannot mute the sound from taking gates in systems that have active incursions within them? Been reporting it for like 2 years now, no response ever.

Also not a fan of merging of sounds under one header.
CCP Antiquarian
C C P
C C P Alliance
#36 - 2017-05-09 11:18:25 UTC
Thanks everyone for adding your voices here. Hopefully you'll have more to add after the update goes live.

I've shared this link directly with the director, but I am also counting mentions of specific pain points to "weight" the responses, so the more direct/clear you are with your comments, the better.

"Singularity pilots are helpful pilots."

@CCP_Antiquarian - for immediate fulfillment of your archaic social media needs.
Felyx Ravencroft
#37 - 2017-05-09 11:55:12 UTC
o7

I would like to add my voice to those of people who prefer finer, more granular control. As several other users have pointed out, many of us have strong, definite preferences, enjoying some sounds (whether aesthetically or functionally) and disliking others (again either aesthetically or functionally.) It makes no sense to be forced to have an annoying and uninformative sound occluding other sounds that provide vital feedback, simply because it is yoked to the same slider as a must-have effect - it's a lose-lose proposition, then: turn off the nuisance AND something important, or turn up the important thing yet still be unable to hear it and possibly others properly on account of the nuisance. My foremost bugbear would have to be the UI Click, but it is by no means the only one, simply the one that springs to mind immediately from a sanity perspective - but there are also others where a player's particular style and priorities dictate what he/she needs to hear most (and also least .)

Furthermore, this is not a simple binary matter: changing sliders to toggles would hardly be any better (in case this means of simplifying is under consideration by anyone) - sure, while some sounds many of us turn right off (yes, I'm looking at you again, UI Click!), in many other cases we are treating the sliders as a graphic equalizer. Being able to tweak the balance to suit our needs and our preferences - this would be a VERY sad feature to lose.

I think it is very important to note that EVE is a game that is played in a wide variety of ways, and already that alone necessitates customisability. Reducing available options in order to fit a mould based on a narrow subset of play styles would be a very retrograde, counterproductive move, in my opinion.

My own UI usage keeps evolving, so these sliders are things that I occasionally look at, and in fact have been intending to tweak MORE in the coming weeks or even longer. I'm not convinced that it needs to be made more granular (I haven't come across any crucial oversights SO FAR), but I AM convinced that it should NOT be made any LESS granular.
Annexe
I N E X T R E M I S
Tactical Narcotics Team
#38 - 2017-05-09 13:01:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Annexe
Well I obviously missed this memo, or else it wasn't publicly announced... but seriously?


Audio:

The advanced audio settings menu has been simplified to offer a more streamlined experience.


We now have 7 audio options? Quit dumbing down Eve and taking away good sh*t


That is ridiculous! I spent a lot of time getting certain sounds to a level that suited how I like to play the game. Increasing 3rd-party warp, turning off ab/mwd sound.. it was great for really customising the sound scape (#evehassound)

I am absolutely disappointed that this thread was not promoted earlier on during development, and instead only find out from the patch notes about the change.


RIP Eve Sound


CCP Antiquarian.. I thought we had a good thing going at EDU last year :(

Annexe

ITAI - VIP

"i will pop your wreck with faction loot"
Felyx Ravencroft
#39 - 2017-05-09 13:17:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Felyx Ravencroft
Annexe wrote:
Well I obviously missed this memo, or else it wasn't publicly announced... but seriously?


Audio:

The advanced audio settings menu has been simplified to offer a more streamlined experience.


We now have 7 audio options? Quit dumbing down Eve and taking away good sh*t

+1


Annexe wrote:
I am absolutely disappointed that this thread was not promoted earlier on during development, and instead only find out from the patch notes about the change.


I couldn't agree more! I, too, only found out about this by browsing the forum while waiting for the server to start back up - I'm not one to normally watch the forum like a hawk - I'm too busy playing the game!

And CCP, please please for the love of... love itself, STOP THAT INCESSANT CLICKING!

I refer, of course, to the UI Click that was previously possible to disable in the ADVANCED audio options (as opposed to the new NON-advanced audio options!) Having the audio constantly sounding as though there were a loose speaker wire is beyond infuriating, given that mousing over ANYTHING triggers it, and pretty much any action also does. So now I've had to resort to disabling the UI sounds completely, and I don't yet know just exactly what else I'm sacrificing, potentially important sounds included.

Personally, I have to give this particular change (read "significant downgrade") a HUGE THUMBS-DOWN. Evil

EDIT: Here's some irony for you: I expect that, given how sounds are now lumped together so much more generically, the net result may well be LESS usage of the sliders overall, because it is no longer possible to target individual types/subtypes/effects. Now wasn't this change intended (or at least rationalised) to address underuse of the advanced audio settings? Talk about completely counterproductive...
Silas Grimm
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#40 - 2017-05-09 13:37:56 UTC
More $ to play, less options, pay to win, asset 'safety', plex vaults. When does Eve go 100% mobile device?