More Sounds

[fioralongears]

Hey all! So I noticed that many abilities do not produce any sound when used. This includes general abilities like Runes/Infusions, as well as many class specific talents. In fact, it seems probably more than 50% of the abilities in the game don't produce any sound. Since I happen to have some experience in sound design, I'm taking up a bit of a project to create new, unique sounds, for the various abilities that don't have one. With how many different abilities and ability trees there are in the game though, it'll probably have to be a slow but gradual process. Listed below are the newly added sounds, and the mod can be found here: https://te4.org/games/addons/tome/newsounds

(As of the latest update, the mod now plays sounds upon infliction of certain status effects!)

[Status Effects]
Confused
Disarmed
Stunned

[Infusions/Runes]
Healing
Manasurge
Regeneration
Reflection Shield
Shatter Afflictions
Shielding
Wild

[Other Talents]
Adrenaline Surge
Assault
Execution
Death Dance
Disengage
Fearless Cleave
Gift of the Woods
Rush
Shattering Blow
Shield Slam
Stealth
Sun Ray
Sun's Vengeance
Tumble
Wave of Power
Wrath of the Highborn

I've mostly just been making sounds for whatever classes/races I've been playing. It helps me get an idea of what the ability does and what I think it should sound like.

Now, I'm by no means a professional sound designer for video games, so I'm not sure how fitting some of these sounds really are. Personally I like playing with them more so than without, but I'd really appreciate any feedback anyone might have for me regarding the sounds. I'd like to make them as high quality as possible, as well as fitting of the ability and of the atmosphere of the game. So please let me know if you have any comments / suggestions for me. Also, feel free to make any requests you might have about what abilities you might want me to cover next. I don't have all the classes unlocked yet, so again it'll have to be a slow / gradual process.

Anyhow, I hope that this mod may improve the experience of the game for some people! I'll post here with any new updates I have about the mod.

------------------------------------

Changelog:

1.1.0

• Added sounds for inflction of status effects: Confused, Disarmed, Stunned
• Added sounds for talents: Assault, Reflection Shield
• Removed sounds for talents: Shield Pummel, Stunning Blow. (Instead these talents will trigger the 'Stunned' sound if they are successful in inflicting that status.)

1.1.1

• Other 'stunned' type debuffs will now play the 'stunned' sound effect (Burning Shock, Dazed)
• Other 'confused' type debuffs will now play the 'confused' sound effect (Gloom, Madness, Lobotomized, Bane of Confusion)
• Reflection Shield sound changed to same as Shielding
• Made some of the sounds a bit louder

[smithfield]

Fantastic.
Sound adds as much to the game as beautiful shader work.
I use the Audiomancy addon, and this has made me increasingly aware of the usefulness of sound cues.
I've had a checklist in my mind for a while now, and I'm just going to put it out here as an open suggestion.

Acid and Darkness damage types are noticeably silent.

Distinct audible events for the application of these Status. Cherry picking here for the ones that would make the greatest impact.
Stun (oof)
Confuse (uhhh uh oo uhhh uhhh uh oo)
Disarm (whoops!)
Hexes (arhhhg)

I don't know how the sound cues are organized - whether its by Talent, or whether it occurs else where - I've simply never looked into it.
If you're into doing the sound design, I'd be happy to track this down. That much is within the constraints of my abilities.

[fioralongears]

Ohh Audiomancy looks like a great addon and is pretty tied to what I'm trying to do with this addon. I'm going to have to try it out and take a closer look. From the description it sounds like they are looking to add more distinct sound effects; maybe I could provide some or at least make these mods work well together.

That's an excellent idea to pair important status effects with sound cues. Disarm especially gets me every time with not realizing it's happened. I'll definitely look into making sounds associated with each of those statuses.

Sound effects are indeed tied to individual talents and trigger whenever they are used, although it may be possible to program them in in other ways. If a sound could be played upon a unit gaining a status, that may be the most effective way to implement things, but one could always just add in the respective sound effect for each individual talent. As of now I've just got the new sounds playing whenever the ability is used, but it should be easy enough to make it only play upon a successful hit, or application of status, etc.

So far I've made about 25 different sounds or so, for various individual arbitrary talents, but I wonder if it would be better to spread these sounds out across many more abilities that are similar in nature or effect. Might be more practical to go about it in a more general way like that. Anyway I should check out Audiomancy first.

[smithfield]

I've played w/ this for a day now and...

It is good.

It doesn't have any noticable conflicts w/ Audiomancy or anything else.

I'm guessing, there is a sound trigger for the application of a specific damage type, or a set of damage type sound effect used by type in the talent trigger.
Fire always has the "fire sound", sometimes even in 3rd party addons. Etc..
But its clear that there's nothing for Acid and Darkness.
These two would become a noticeable presence in gameplay immediately.
I think Light is silent too, but I keep 'failing to notice '

There's an addon from Nekacross which adds visual status cues.
Whatever he's doing is probably the same thing that needed to add sound cues.

[fioralongears]

I'm glad to hear you're liking it! ^^. I have been playing with Audiomancy and have also noticed it works well with this, which is great.

I figured out how to pair sounds with the infliction of status effects, and have just released an update that plays a sound upon the infliction of Confused, Disarmed, and Stunned statuses. Also added sounds for the talents Reflection Shield and Assault.

Have not done much practical testing just yet but I definitely like status effects triggering sounds. From here I'll look to add in ones for Blinded, Silenced, Pinned, Dazed... maybe eventually all status effects, or at least the most relevant ones. Also wonder if it would be good to have a sound for when a status gets resisted.

With damage types, I'm not sure whether it's Audiomancy or the game itself playing sounds for each type category. I think it might be the base game doing that, while Audiomancy is replacing the sounds? not totally sure. Anyway, I think I might have one for Light already, and some ideas in mind for Acid / Darkness. Will have to investigate how it's all implemented.

Updated the first post, will archive change logs there~

[fioralongears]

Smol update:

- Other 'stunned' type debuffs will now play the 'stunned' sound effect (Burning Shock, Dazed)
- Other 'confused' type debuffs will now play the 'confused' sound effect (Gloom, Madness, Lobotomized, Bane of Confusion)
- Reflection Shield sound changed to same as Shielding
- Made some of the sounds a bit louder

[smithfield]

Request

Make the sound cue for 'daze' and 'stun' - perhaps similar - but audibly distinct.

(reasoning .. in detail)
Sound cues speed up play when they remove the need to use the tooltip.
Its a big speed up, especially w/ common stuff.
A common case = is it a 'stun' or a 'daze'?
I respond to these differently and it happens A LOT.
I've wanted something that let me know which is which w/o hitting the tooltip for a long while.

It could be something subtle like dropping the volume , or shortening the sound, for daze.

Also. just to let you know about some of the fun...
The daze sound triggers the same on application to all actors.
SO...
Using a lighting storm wand on stuff out of LOS, you can still 'hear' whether its hitting anything or not.
A neat little bonus which I'm sure to find a use for.