Hello,
I would like to suggest a few changes to game Audio Settings and Sound Options to be implemented in future patches of Warcraft 3 and Warcraft 3 Reforged:
There are currently (version 1.30.2) no options to separately regulate the different game sounds volume levels.
Game sounds could be grouped as follows:
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1. Notifications and Responses:
* Game Voice Notifications (resource notifications / base and combat event notifications) - no option to turn On/Off separately. Basically these are On if Game Sounds are on (Master Volume).
* Unit Responses / Unit Speech (can be turned On/Off, but if turned Off players no longer receive notifications when building/training units - this could be added to Building sounds or as separate option)
* Building Sounds - (can be turned On/Off, provides notification for research, but not for trained units)
2. In Game Sounds:
* Ambient sounds,
* Environmental effects,
* Movement sounds
* Game Combat Sounds
* Unit Ability sounds
3. Game Music (regulated separately)
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Additional Checkbox options and Sliders in Sound Options to separately regulate some or all of the sound types could improve game audio:
All In Game sounds categories (1. Notifications and Responses and 2. In Game sounds ) are all at once affected by the game Master Volume (Game Sounds volume).
However in game there is a difference in their volume levels and it happens that the overall volume level of the Unit/Hero Speech and Game Voice Notifications is around 150% compared to In Game Sounds (combat sounds, ambient sounds, environmental effects, movement sounds and ability sounds etc.).
As Speech and Voice notifications override the rest of the game sounds - they affect game atmosphere since they occur all the time throughout the game during unit control.
Normally each Unit/Hero repeats 2 or 3 default phrases for Select/Action - which gets repeated throughout the whole game while overriding other game sounds in terms of volume (a few additional response variations per Unit/Hero could also improve game audio if added to the default responses).
This is especially noticeable when instead of a headset, for example an audio system with Subwoofer is used.
Currently in order to be able to hear In Game sounds properly due to high Hero/Unit Speech volume (and still not have too high Speech volume) - players have 2 options:
1. Either to lower game Master volume (In Game sounds will have even lower volume in this way).
or
2. Turn off Unit Responses (and Unit Speech) completely (unable to get notifications for new units built/trained).
Turning off the Unit Responses option - all game ambient, weather sounds, movement sounds and combat sounds can now be heard at 100% - the in game atmosphere can now be heard better and even allows overall game Master volume to be increased by the player (overall game audio is more quiet now).
The Voice Notifications (resource notifications / base and combat event notifications) in this mode are still On however and still have higher volume (around 150%) than other In Game sounds. An option could be added to turn Game Voice Notifications On/Off with a separate checkbox and also a slider to regulate the volume.
Unit Responses are essential to gameplay - especially for melee gameplay, where players need to have the Unit building/training sounds On (unit training complete) upgrade sounds etc. If Unit Responses is turned Off completely - with no sound notification for new units that are built - this impacts melee gameplay significantly.
If possible an option to separately turn On/Off for Unit Responses/Speech, Unit Training Sounds and Voice Notifications (even set separate volume levels via sliders) would be very useful.
Volumes of Unit Speech/Responses, Training sounds and Voice notifications could be regulated separately in Sound Settings to allow the rest of the game sounds to be properly heard.
For example for every checkbox in the sound Options menu - there could be a slider to regulate the volume separately:
Unit Responses; Building Sounds, Ambient sounds; Game sounds (Combat and Ability sounds); Weather Effects, Music As well as Master Volume that would affect all settings.
In this way players can customize the game audio to better hear the combat, movement and ambient sounds, while still have the Building Sounds, Unit Training Notifications, Unit/Hero Responses and Speech On, but with slightly lower volume.
Alternatively - trained units notifications could be included to Building Sounds - sound notifications when a new unit is built could occur as notifications for Building/Research complete.
Unit Responses option in Sound Options could be changed to turn On/Off only Unit Speech (only when a unit is selected and commands are issued) - not affecting new trained units.
Additional Unit sounds:
Movement sounds:
Currently only some unit types have specific footsteps effects. Smaller units and some Hero types do not have footsteps effects on different terrain.
In water areas all units have footstep effect.
Additional footsteps effects could be added for all units and also filters could be implemented for different terrain types:
Dirt / Grass / Snow / Desert / Stone etc.
Additional sound effect presets could be implemented (could be optional, possibly player customizable):
* for Hero/Unit/Item Auras (different sound effects)
* for buildings (ambient building sounds or sound effects when a building is producing units)
* for units like the Orc Kodo Beast (different rhythm patterns or drum pitch options)
Optional Visual Effects:
Additional visual effects related to Unit Health - similar to the building damage effect.
Options for in game toggle of Show Unit Health Bars
Using shortcuts that would allow to toggle different Health Bars of units On/Off in game - without having to switch to Game Menu (for example Ctrl+[ for allied units // Ctrl+] for enemy units and another shortcut for all units). Currently this can be used when pressing ALT for all, [ for allied and ] for enemy units, but there is no option to toggle the settings using a shortcut as for example turning On/Off Sound (Ctrl+S) and Music (Ctrl+M).
All the best
?
