Fix the Audio Settings

This is a very minor gripe, but it's currently making me quite angry so I wanted to rant/post about it to see who agrees.

The audio settings in XIV is missing one terribly important slider, ambiance volume. I can turn off BGM, System Sounds and Sound Effects all I want, but i'll still here the ridiculously loud crickets, birds and owls in the Black Shroud, or the wolves in Thanalan.

3/4 of the time i'm playing my own music while playing XIV, and hearing these sounds over top of my songs is very irritating.

As I said, minor gripe, but I hope this gets added in. Or a 'Mute all' check box or something. What is the point of audio slides if we can't control all our audio?

I know it's not a good solution as the game really needs better configuration settings across the board, audio is one of those. In the meantime since I'm sure any official response would simply say "we need to wait for server-side improvements", you can use the built-in audio mixer if using Windows 7. To do this, click the volume icon next to the clock, click Mixer, scroll over to FFXIV, and mute it. This will mute all FFXIV sounds but not your music. If you don't use Windows 7, then I'm not sure of any solution. :(

I just wish we could raise the BGM higher. Makes fighting BGMs so much better when its really blasting out of the speakers.

Wow, didn't realize you could do that. Thank you. But yes, better configuration would be amazing. If an official response actually said "we need to wait for server-side improvements" for this i'd LOL because this is a client issue.

In FFXIV config if you hit General then Sounds, theres a checkbox that says Disable Sound Device which will prevent ffxiv using the sound card which completly mutes it, the downside is if you want sounds in cutscenes you have to exit the game before the mission, but for now atleast it works for preventing those anoyying sounds.

This only stops ffxiv using the sound card, you can still listen to music, talk on vent/TS/Skype while playing, its the only way I have found to solve the problem

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Originally Posted by Ava

I know it's not a good solution as the game really needs better configuration settings across the board, audio is one of those. In the meantime since I'm sure any official response would simply say "we need to wait for server-side improvements", you can use the built-in audio mixer if using Windows 7. To do this, click the volume icon next to the clock, click Mixer, scroll over to FFXIV, and mute it. This will mute all FFXIV sounds but not your music. If you don't use Windows 7, then I'm not sure of any solution. :(

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No way!! I didn't know that either, thank you so much!! Now I can watch netflix and craft/gather without competing sound. ^_^ Or listen to my own music.

edit: and it's sooo freaking simple too.

Yeah, please add a means to reduce the ridiculously loud crickets and wind/rain sounds! They are very annoying after awhile. Even when you turn every slider to 0, those sounds are still blasting away. I love listening to the rain, but it'd still be nice to turn it down a little.

As for the mixer fix using Win7, I've been using that for months now, but its not the best means to reduce those noises, still though, its been better than not having a means.

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Originally Posted by Cendres

No way!! I didn't know that either, thank you so much!! Now I can watch netflix and craft/gather without competing sound. ^_^ Or listen to my own music.

edit: and it's sooo freaking simple too.

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I use this feature ALL the time in Windows 7, it's one of my favorite things. XD The nice part about it is you can just click the sound on/off as you need it, so if you run into a cutscene in game you can unmute it with just a click and then mute it again after the CS. :D

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Originally Posted by Aistaraina

Wow, didn't realize you could do that. Thank you. But yes, better configuration would be amazing. If an official response actually said "we need to wait for server-side improvements" for this i'd LOL because this is a client issue.

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Well prepare your LOL cannon because that's their response to pretty much EVERYTHING.

I really want to see what they come up with once those are done... If they ever are.