Killer sound volume - please help save my hearing!
Hi all and hello BHVR!
I have been playing DBD for a little over a year now, have gotten so many of my friends into the game and as someone who moved away from a lot of my friends it's such an amazing way to stay in contact, I love it. Maybe half a year ago I started playing killer (thank you shadowborn - I have motion sickness from first person views and it's helped me not get ill or dizzy!!) and recently I've been running into a big problem with the volume.
Basically I think some of the Killer sounds are just too loud. I picked up Demogorgon just before he went extinct and I love his gameplay, it's so much fun. But I feel like I am killing my hearing every time I land a shred or down a survivor. I have to put the volume way up on my headphones to hear footsteps and boons, as anyone who plays killer probably does. BUT when I do a shred attack or down a survivor it makes me want to cry for my ears. My suggestion is - could there be any way we could turn down the killer sounds while playing killer?
I love this game but my mom has tinnitus and it seems painful and annoying. I feel i'm headed that way if I keep up with playing killer. According to this article, anything over 85 decibels for 30 mins or more can begin to cause scarring in your ears and though these stats are old and probably higher now, this article says "the use of personal listening devices [led to] a 70 percent increase to hearing loss in children" (https://dotesports.com/sponsored/news/tips-to-protect-your-hearing-in-and-out-of-game)
Does anyone else feel like they might be heading for hearing loss thanks to playing certain killers? I haven't played them but I imagine Hillbilly and Bubba players might also be struggling with the noise. My only solution so far has been to manually turn down the volume on my headset if i think I'm going to land a hit but this is obviously not very conducive to good gameplay. Please help my ears 😭
Comments
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It's a "balance" feature.
I do agree with you, sounds from killer's pov are awful. The breaking pallets sound is awful, notification sounds is awful, but how can we convince people that don't play regularly the killer role and are not bothered with these issues? They don't care lol
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Yeah, we have been asking for the option to alter the SFX in this game as an accessability feature for ages, they are never going to do it because 'its a feature of the game.'
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Oh boy, if you think Demo is loud then don't ever kick a gen with Pinhead.
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Man that sucks. I can take the breaking sounds, explosion sounds and even the survivor screaming in my face after hooking them (now with added fireworks... yay?) but just demogorgon's massive scream makes me feel like I am burning out my ears so badly... Plus if you main him then you are going to hear it many many times a match. I can only imagine chainsaw folks feel the same way.
It would be nice for transparency to have some kind of warning or graphs which show how loud killer sounds are in a match at least. Then I can see how much I am damaging my ears or limit myself in some way to protect them. I do play both sides about evenly but I would love to play more demo if I didn't think he'd be the death of my hearing. Maybe I should switch to a nice quiet stealth killer...
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You'll get used to Demo's screams, trust me
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It's not a matter of getting used to, the loud sounds can literally hurt you physically.
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An issue is the relative loudness of sounds to each other is intentional. For instance, chase music is intentionally made loud to make other sounds harder to hear. So being able to lower only specific sound-types would give a gameplay advantage.
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Agreed - I do remember when it was scary when first time encountering him as survivor and neat when playing him as killer for the first time. I think it's a well designed sound (i really do like the sound, it has depth and also part of it sounds like a hurt human-ish sound)... But now that I've been playing him let's say every other day for some months it is approaching painful with my headphones at max volume - my typical setting for killer matches (just to be able to better locate survivors cos I still suck at that!).
I mean could there be an option for toning it down after you've played a certain amount of times? The jump scare aspect of it would still be there for new players but it won't lead to permanent hearing loss for long time players.
Then again really the easiest option would be to be able to lightly decreased the volume of one's own sounds as killer. As it is now I'll just invest in some quieter killers so that DBD doesn't make me deaf. Would love to hear from sound designers and other people on the team who need to use headphones all day about their thoughts on this... I am sure people would see the health benefit.
RE: SuzuKR - I can see that but I would much prefer a way to tone down Demo's scream and, if necessary, ALL game sounds during that moment, rather than have to hear it so loud every time.
Also most other killer's hit sounds aren't quite so intense as that whereas the attack itself isn't so different from, say, Pig ambush or Pyramid's attack which both seem to me to be much less loud.
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