I have noticed that almost all bosses lack proper audio cues for their attacks. And with all the effect spam going around (which reduces their visibility), having sound to react to would be very helpful.
So please, add loud and clear sound effects leading up to a boss attack. Give us something we can react to in all the effect clutter.
Hello Mad Queen,
Not all attacks made by bosses need to be audibly telegraphed ahead of time in order for players to know they need to react to them. For instance, bosses can use instant skills and there is no telling when they may fire. Another example is the case where there is nothing visually to tie the sound to since something has to sensibly make the sound, it can’t be placed in arbitrarily just before a boss uses any of its skills.
However, bosses sometimes have a strong visual tell for their attack (such as a warmup of some kind). We agree with you, that often these types of attacks need audio tells to coincide with them—and in so many cases they do already have one.
Which boss were you fighting that didn’t have a clearly audible tell for a warmup-type attack? Unless your report is made specific, there is very little chance of audio-tell bugs getting a fix.
I shall also note that bosses also need to speak as well so that they would have actual personalities. I mean, no Toxic or Molten Alliance member has so much as a name!
This is actually feedback for the Living World writing/design teams. There’s nothing that the audio department can actually do to address this. Please head on over to the Living World subforums and offer some suggestion feedback when you have a moment.
Thanks for the feedback!
While the sounds of player combat is likely loud during these encounters, as designers we try to take this into account when mixing our boss battles.
Scarlet’s prime hologram does have an audio-visual tell for when it is going to do its close AOE attack (sounds like a laser beam charging up), which I know I could definitely hear during the fight, but that particular sound for the tell is not extremely intense or anything. Similarly, the Assault Knights have an audio-visual tell for the AOE pull as well (it launches up with a huge blast out of its jetpack).
As for Giganticus Lupicus, it’s been a long time since that boss has been given any attention design-wise, and it’s on a list of bosses I have saved somewhere, a to-do list of bosses to spruce up, so I would say that one is a known-issue.
Let’s be clear, I am only talking about slight polish to sound effects, and not about the gameplay of the encounter whatsoever. I can’t, nor would I want to change anything about the tactics or strategies that players would use when fighting the boss.
Hey Queen,
Just to reply about the Scarlet hologram battle, each of the phases of the battle and every single action that the boss makes is accompanied by a fittingly loud sound that should be quite audible over the din of the players battling around her, and in fact they should dwarf the player sounds by quite a lot. I’m wondering why you’re having trouble hearing the boss sounds.
Have you set the ‘Audio Quality’ slider to the far right? This allows for the highest number of sounds to play. Even though the boss sounds definitely take priority over any quieter sounds (such as player sounds) and will play in favor of them, this is a good place to start. Though setting to the far left will be less taxing for your CPU, which depending on the hardware you’re using might be provide preferable performance.
Also try to ensure that the audio volume sliders in the audio panel are not set too far to the left in the ‘Effects Volume’ category.
Other than that, there may be other things to troubleshoot in order to hear the appropriate sounds. Check back if any of my suggestions don’t allow you to hear the boss’s sounds in the Scarlet Hologram boss fight, which is one of the loudest encounters we have in the game, right along with Tequatl, the Great Jungle Wurm and the Marionette.
