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[JumpJeff84]

From what I understand, the Halo games have never let players adjust sound levels due to composer Marty O'Donnell's insistence that "he knew best".

He believed that he was uniquely qualified to mix the sound effects, game dialogue and soundtrack in a way that was the ONLY way. So regardless of whether you were playing the sound out of your TV speakers, on a surround sound setup or through a pair of headphones, he had it figured out. As a result, a common complaint about Halo games is "I can't hear what they're saying during the cut-scenes!"

And God forbid that you wanna turn the music off completely. No chance! Marty made this score and you'll listen to it, whether you want to or not.

Before Destiny was released, Bungie let Marty go.


I sat down to play Destiny last night and found that there are still no audio options. No way to adjust levels of anything, great, thanks! I'll just trust again that Bungie has figured out the perfect balance of sound effects, game dialogue, online voice chat and the score for my system. Sheesh.

I jumped into one of the starting areas, and there was no music. It was...nice. I enjoyed hearing the atmospheric sounds of the world, and I pulled out my sniper rifle and zoomed in on a distant target, took a shot- satisfying 'crack' of the bullet.

Then I took a few steps and the bombastic score kicked it, I dunno, kinda ruined it for me. I'm not saying the music is bad. I know people love Marty's composing, and that's cool. But I think the game works better without it. So why can't I turn it off, for fuck's sake? Bungie is the only developer, AAA or otherwise, that does this as far as I know. Why do they do it? Marty's gone, it's not his call anymore. What's the deal?

Any Bungie superfans out there know what the real story is on this? I'm honestly curious. Are basic options for audio such a bad thing?

 

[Flying Toaster]

Clearly your not busy enough killing Fallen and you want to twiddle your sound options. Get your priorities straight Guardian.

 

[Hades Hotgun]

I like to pipe all audio through my headset so my wife doesn't have to hear it while she is working (she is a comic book artist and works long hours at home).

However, with Destiny I can barely hear my friends in chat over the unchangeable, incredibly, annoyingly, loud game sounds. In particular the sound track makes chat fucking inaudible during big fights and boss battles.

I would very much appreciate a patch to allow me to control different sound levels in game.

 

[JumpJeff84]

I like to pipe all audio through my headset so my wife doesn't have to hear it while she is working (she is a comic book artist and works long hours at home).

However, with Destiny I can barely hear my friends in chat over the unchangeable, incredibly, annoyingly, loud game sounds. In particular the sound track makes chat fucking inaudible during big fights and boss battles.

I would very much appreciate a patch to allow me to control different sound levels in game.

I haven't even tied any in-game chat yet. That'll suck if I can't hear my friends!

 

[Iorv3th]

I like to pipe all audio through my headset so my wife doesn't have to hear it while she is working (she is a comic book artist and works long hours at home).

However, with Destiny I can barely hear my friends in chat over the unchangeable, incredibly, annoyingly, loud game sounds. In particular the sound track makes chat fucking inaudible during big fights and boss battles.

I would very much appreciate a patch to allow me to control different sound levels in game.

Are you in a party with them? Because under the party tab there is a setting to prioritize party audio over game audio and you can adjust it.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

As nice as the soundtrack is, I agree with you. The music can get very loud and very deafening in some areas. Ambient sound high with music low is the way to enjoy the vast universe. Options are always good.

 

[ZetaEpyon]

I like to pipe all audio through my headset so my wife doesn't have to hear it while she is working (she is a comic book artist and works long hours at home).

However, with Destiny I can barely hear my friends in chat over the unchangeable, incredibly, annoyingly, loud game sounds. In particular the sound track makes chat fucking inaudible during big fights and boss battles.

I would very much appreciate a patch to allow me to control different sound levels in game.

On PS4 at least, you can do this, it's just that it's a system setting, not something in game. No idea about other platforms.

 

[Justified]

Because they hate the Pulse Elites

 

[bishoptl]

Are you in a party with them? Because under the party tab there is a setting to prioritize party audio over game audio and you can adjust it.

This is good to know. I was playing with jetjevons last night and had to slide my Pulse Elite dial all the way to voice in order to talk, killing in game SFX entirely. Not the best solution.

 

[Nokterian]

I like to pipe all audio through my headset so my wife doesn't have to hear it while she is working (she is a comic book artist and works long hours at home).

However, with Destiny I can barely hear my friends in chat over the unchangeable, incredibly, annoyingly, loud game sounds. In particular the sound track makes chat fucking inaudible during big fights and boss battles.

I would very much appreciate a patch to allow me to control different sound levels in game.

You don't own Playstation Headset 2.0 for PS4/3 and Vita? I have it and using Destiny profile and works awesome. It works very good and when i am in my fireteam it suppresses the sound of the game so i can hear my friends clearly. Also i can do a nice balance with push of a button for louder game sound or more of the voice chat i let it in the middle somewhere.

That headset is great investment and i don't regret it.

 

[The_Almighty_Swan]

Clearly your not busy enough killing Fallen and you want to twiddle your sound options. Get your priorities straight Guardian.

That's the first thought that came to mind reading the OP also LOL!!!

 

[Sodding_Gamer]

You don't own Playstation Headset 2.0 for PS4/3 and Vita? I have it and using Destiny profile and works awesome. It works very good and when i am in my fireteam it suppresses the sound of the game so i can hear my friends clearly. Also i can do a nice balance with push of a button for louder game sound or more of the voice chat i let it in the middle somewhere.

That headset is great investment and i don't regret it.

That's great and all but kinda missing the point. We shouldn't have to purchase a special headset so we can change audio settings. It's been the standard for years. I too can't hear shit in my fireteam when the music kicks in. I use the PS parry and prioritise chat but it would be nice to hear the music and ambient sounds, just not so fucking loud haha.

 

[super-famicom]

This was a big complaint I had in the Alpha and Beta, and I'm surprised Bungie hasn't added volume sliders to its options. I play with headphones and a clip on mic plugged into the Dualshock 4 (with an adapter cable), and pipe everything into the headphones (I play on a monitor and don't have great speakers, plus I love how immersive the game sounds through headphones). It's super difficult to hear fire team members via in game chat over the sound of gunfire and explosions. Setting up a separate party chat alleviates this problem, since then somehow the chat volume takes priority over the game volume. But when people in my friend list join my fire team, I have to stop what I'm doing and send an invitation to join the chat party; it's kinda annoying. As much as I enjoy the soundtrack of Destiny, we should have the option to adjust the volume levels to our liking.

 

[nib95]

My post from earlier.

I wish Bungie would add an in game volume option. My headphones connect to my DAC through to my PS4, but unfortunately I can't control the volume. In most games I just turn it down in the games menu, in Destiny I can't seem to go find a volume option. So there I am playing the game secretly whilst my wife's asleep, with some super detailed, ultra loud headphones that are scaring me with loud random sounds all the time lol.

On a side note, the audio work in this game is fantastic.

 

[JumpJeff84]

So does anyone know WHY they don't give us options? Have they ever said anything on it?

 

[super-famicom]

My post from earlier.

I have a similar problem, too. I use a DAC and headphones for single player games, but if I want to chat with my mic, I have to plug everything into the controller since chat audio can only come from there and not be output to speakers or headphones running through a DAC.

 

[The_Almighty_Swan]

So does anyone know WHY they don't give us options? Have they ever said anything on it?

You answered your own question in the original post. and it takes away from the experience to meddle with the sound options. Enjoy what's been presented to you. It's not really that big of a deal is it?

 

[RdN]

I was looking yesterday for an option to turn down the music, since it gets VERY repetitive, and nothing.. Really disappointing.

 

[AtomicShroom]

Bungie is the only developer, AAA or otherwise, that does this as far as I know.

Well clearly you haven't played many Nintendo games in your lifetime.

Thankfully, I have never had any audio level problems in any Ninty games, so I'm not complaining when it comes to them.

 

[JumpJeff84]

You answered your own question in the original post. and it takes away from the experience to meddle with the sound options. Enjoy what's been presented to you. It's not really that big of a deal is it?

Are you playing devil's advocate, or do you actually believe what you typed?

 

[JumpJeff84]

Well clearly you haven't played many Nintendo games in your lifetime.

Thankfully, I have never had any audio level problems in any Ninty games, so I'm not complaining when it comes to them.

yeah I forgot about Nintendo when I made this thread. The option to turn off the music in Mario Kart 8 would been nice. Didn't bother me as much as Destiny does though.

 

[Pie and Beans]

The subtitles are shit in Destiny as well. An entire paragraph of yellow text just dumped on screen, not timed or anything. Super amateur hour stuff.

 

[malfcn]

Some artists don't want their vision changed. I play hockey and ordering gear is different everytime. Some brands will do whatever custom stuff you want. Others belive their design is set and shouldn't be altered for optimum performance or experience.

 

[Bsigg12]

The Marty O'donnell mandate. It could very well disappear in an update/future releases now that he's gone.

 

[JumpJeff84]

Some artists don't want their vision changed. I play hockey and ordering gear is different everytime. Some brands will do whatever custom stuff you want. Others belive their design is set and shouldn't be altered for optimum performance or experience.

Yeah but they shitcanned the artist in this case.

 

[LOLCats]

I went to turn down gunfire in alpha. no settings, figured ahh its alpha.

SO glad i didn't buy this one.

 

[see5harp]

Personally, I find the sound mix to be A LOT lower than most games. I was fine with Bungie's work on the Halo games, which always sounded great, but for whatever reason I could barely hear the music and sound effects in Destiny. It also irritated me to no end that the opening cutscene was mixed in Stereo (same thing with Diablo 3). I don't understand spending millions on some of the best looking CGI in the business and using some super low stereo mix for the sound. It doesn't even match the sound levels of the in game cutscenes so it's super weird.

 

[Gothos]

So does anyone know WHY they don't give us options? Have they ever said anything on it?

My guess would be they think they know better or they simply don't care

 

[mikekennyb]

Had the same problem last night as well.

The gunfire sound effects are overpoweringly loud, while the dialogue is much softer. Living in an apartment with a soundbar + subwoofer, had to turn down the volume of the game to the point of the dialogue being indecipherable so as not to bother the neighbors with the sound effects. Don't understand why this is a problem for Bungie since having audio options is commonplace.

 

[JumpJeff84]

The crazy part is that the game is all about customization.

You decide what your Guardian looks like, you can change their hair color, you can spec them out, dress them up like paper dolls, you name it.

But no options for sound!

 

[Kinthalis]

So does anyone know WHY they don't give us options? Have they ever said anything on it?

I suspect the OP wasn't wrong.

They really do think they know better than you.

 

[Doomshine]

and it takes away from the experience to meddle with the sound options. Enjoy what's been presented to you. It's not really that big of a deal is it?

I don't even... it's not like you're going to be constantly going in and out of the menu to this.

 

[JumpJeff84]

My guess would be they think they know better or they simply don't care

I get the feeling that Bungie generally cares about their games. They put a lot of time in money into what they make, to be sure.

So I'm assuming it's the former- they think they've figured out the optimal levels for the game to be enjoyed. With that in mind, people saying things like "I couldn't hear the music" or "I couldn't hear the gunfire" or "I couldn't hear the dialogue" should upset them.

Generally developers that work as hard as Bungie does give a shit about the user experience, no?

 

[Dawnbuster]

Would love an option to turn off the music entirely. Some of it is just cheesy to me and brings me out of the experience. Would rather just have ambient SFX and gunfire.

The subtitles are a mess, agreed. I've just disabled them and turned the sound so low I can't hear it. The dialogue seems to be on par with Diablo 3's awesomely bad first act, so I don't think I'll be missing much going forward.

 

[Rockyrock]

it's Bungie's way or the highway.

 

[Kaiken]

Was trying to look for surrounded sound settings in Destiny to no avail.

 

[Dawnbuster]

I agree though, I wish I could turn Dinklage off entirely, worst game voice acting performance in a long time.

Hard to blame Dinklage, he's an amazing actor. But he can only do so much with the words on the page and whatever recording session direction he was given.

 

[Pimpbaa]

I'm getting annoyed with fucked up sound mixing in a lot of games lately. Even with sound options, Diablo 3's sound is all over the fucking place and they still haven't fixed it despite how long it's been out and the fact it is out on multiple platforms. Also if what OP said is true then fuck Marty O'Donnell. NO ONE can know what's best for the countless sound setups out there. And that is not even factoring in what people prefer for their sound levels to be for sound, music and voice.

 

[Carl]

I like to pipe all audio through my headset so my wife doesn't have to hear it while she is working (she is a comic book artist and works long hours at home).

However, with Destiny I can barely hear my friends in chat over the unchangeable, incredibly, annoyingly, loud game sounds. In particular the sound track makes chat fucking inaudible during big fights and boss battles.

I would very much appreciate a patch to allow me to control different sound levels in game.

Yup, had the same thing. Awful. Friend didn't want to party chat for whatever reason so had to resort to piping game audio through TV and chat audio through headset, which is less than ideal

 

[jwk94]

I like to pipe all audio through my headset so my wife doesn't have to hear it while she is working (she is a comic book artist and works long hours at home).

However, with Destiny I can barely hear my friends in chat over the unchangeable, incredibly, annoyingly, loud game sounds. In particular the sound track makes chat fucking inaudible during big fights and boss battles.

I would very much appreciate a patch to allow me to control different sound levels in game.

This is why I love the Playstation headsets. All I had to do was adjust the chat audio accordingly.

 

[Oppo]

I wish there was a master volume so I could adjust it relative to chat in my headset, but other than that I actually think the sound design in this game is off the charts crazy good.

 

[RiverKwai]

Yeah but they shitcanned the artist in this case.

Yeah, when he was pretty much done with the audio. Maybe Destiny2 will have audio options.

 

[Doomshine]

No, its the worst performance.
Words are irrelevant. I boot up Diablo 3 and Danganronpa afterwards and hear crazy shit said with conviction and feeling.
Tyrion phoned it in.

He could just not be used to doing voice work or maybe he didn't think it was an interesting project, hard to say.

 

[JumpJeff84]

Yeah, when he was pretty much done with the audio. Maybe Destiny2 will have audio options.

Pretty sure it wouldn't be hard for them to patch in audio options. I'm no sound engineer, but I'm pretty certain they have the access to the music master files and could allow users to lower them or GOD FORBID turn them off entirely.

 

[shandy706]

You answered your own question in the original post. and it takes away from the experience to meddle with the sound options. Enjoy what's been presented to you. It's not really that big of a deal is it?

If someone said this and we were talking about one of my PC/Console racing sims....I'd hit you so hard

Music = Off

Hey, maybe someone doesn't want default music in their game...even if it's a shooter/mmo/anything else.

 

[JumpJeff84]

Also if what OP said is true then fuck Marty O'Donnell. NO ONE can know what's best for the countless sound setups out there. And that is not even factoring in what people prefer for their sound levels to be for sound, music and voice.

I'm pretty sure Mary's gone on record saying this. I'm not a huge Halo guy, but back when I was playing Halo 3 I posted on GAF asking where the sound options were and a bunch of HaloGaf enlightened me to the whole Marty O' Donnell thing. I didn't even know who he was at that point.

 

[jetjevons]

This is good to know. I was playing with jetjevons last night and had to slide my Pulse Elite dial all the way to voice in order to talk, killing in game SFX entirely. Not the best solution.

When the music starts blasting during scripted encounters it gets really hard to hear other players talking. I can't believe there isn't a music volume slide.

GG btw Bish. Except for the spider tank public encounter which never happened so I don't know why I'm bringing it up.

 

[Carl]

This is why I love the Playstation headsets. All I had to do was adjust the chat audio accordingly.

Lol oops I thought that only worked for party chat

 

[Mr. Luchador]

Marty was trained in the classic style of audio engineering by the great Nigel Tufnel, so I trust in his decisions.

 

[-tetsuo-]

Marty knows best