"Ambient" sounds

Just a minor pet peeve, but I often listen to podcasts when I play and other times I'll have PoE open in the background while I do other things (homework, etc...) because I like guild chat. So, I generally play with only "Sound Effects Volume" turned up. This means that even if I'm idling in town, I'll still hear the whisper sound effect and if I'm running maps, I can still here the game and the podcast.

Currently, when in towns, there are a number of background sounds that still play even if you have "Ambient Sound Volume" turned off. For example, in Act 2, the chicken sounds and water running still play. Is it possible to classify these sounds as Ambient instead of just sound effects so that they turn off when you turn down Ambient?

I know this is a niche and nitpicky complaint, but it would really improve my experience.

This is something I just don't understand about the sound design in POE. The distinction between ambient sounds and game sounds at times seems to be completely arbitrary. I tried to turn off ambient sounds so I could idle and still get trade requests a while back, and the amount of sounds I still heard was ridiculous.

Sound categories are badly in need of an overhaul.

The problem is we don't have a way to define them currently, the game defines ambient as the single stereo track that's attached to a level. Where as the method these other sounds use is technically how sound effects are played, so they get automatically lumped into that volume category.

I'm pretty sure there is an issue floating around. Like usual it's a low priority thing that gets passed over for more important content. I'll look into it though, if it's an easy fix maybe we can get it in for act 4.

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Andrew_GGG wrote:

The problem is we don't have a way to define them currently, the game defines ambient as the single stereo track that's attached to a level. Where as the method these other sounds use is technically how sound effects are played, so they get automatically lumped into that volume category.

I'm pretty sure there is an issue floating around. Like usual it's a low priority thing that gets passed over for more important content. I'll look into it though, if it's an easy fix maybe we can get it in for act 4.

I figured it was something along these lines. Thanks for the reply and for looking into it!

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Andrew_GGG wrote:

The problem is we don't have a way to define them currently, the game defines ambient as the single stereo track that's attached to a level. Where as the method these other sounds use is technically how sound effects are played, so they get automatically lumped into that volume category.

I'm pretty sure there is an issue floating around. Like usual it's a low priority thing that gets passed over for more important content. I'll look into it though, if it's an easy fix maybe we can get it in for act 4.

There is no way to code an 'array' into you guys' software framework (if there is not already an array option for ambient sounds) that makes it where you can dedicate the imported ambient audio files to a 'ambient sounds' array so that way when the code is run to turn ON/OFF ambient sounds, only those ambient sounds will be turned ON/OFF?

How do you guys not have an array for this in your software framework? Even the 2003-2004 Map Editor of Warcraft: The Frozen Throne (I used to make Maps in long ago before Blizz went to complete crap with its newer titles) had arrays for all sound types. (The Map Editor has since been updated to accept newer coding languages)

There is arguably more I could do in that little Map Editor that you guys' PoE software framework still cannot do, for example, turning off weather effects only in specific regions in the game by any player without affecting other players globally in the options OR by use of two text commands: /weatheroff or /weatheron

I am purposely not acknowledging the fact that, yes, the old Warcraft games are considered big-title games that had some of the best coders back then, because that's no excuse whatsoever.

The age of older software frameworks for older games and what they were able to do should serve as inspiration to improve PoE's software framework, and since the GGG team made their own software framework for PoE, there is no reason why it cannot be improved to include said features other than financial reasons, of course (seems to almost always be the case).