What's in a voice?

[Riardon]

I don't care a lot for the voice. In fact I wonder why they even bother with those voices. Our character is deaf mute after all. Just sitting there while hands and heads are falling and just nods vertically when he aggrees and horizontally when he disagrees. And most of the times he doesn't move his head at all. The voice is only for the emotes which I really don't care. This is not the thread to complain to SE about this cheap decision. And I'm not falling for the even cheaper excuse that development focuses on other things. It's not that it takes so much time to record few lines with 2-3 actors.

[Aryalandi]

^except that there are a few cutscenes where the /sigh /yes emotes have sound~ along with moments of implied talking.

But yes generally our characters are the strong extremely silent type.. except in battle where they are more like
"BEAST MOOOOODE ACTIIIVAAAAATE!!!! RAAAAWRRR!!!!"

[Tanama]

I mostly go by the laugh and cheer, since they're emotes I use a lot and I don't want to cringe every I hear them.

Don't need to make a character to check out all the voices though, there are youtube videos which painstakingly go through every sound (battle voice noises as well as all emotes) for each race, gender, and voice available. When I changed back into Elezen I watched the female elezen video carefully and chose a voice I'm much happier with.

edit: example video

Thank you for that link! I have been looking for something like this.

[BreathlessTao]

"What's in a voice?" - That question is very, very spot-on. Much more than intended, I guess.

I honestly don't know why SE even bothered to put them in, especially so many different sets (seemingly anyway). The few emotes that are audible (and since only a very few, they've become as obnoxious too), and the few battle sounds - hardly think it's worth it. Not that I'd want them removed, even that's more than nothing... but only really marginally. I am surprised, however, and disappointed that literally nothing is ever voiced by our characters. As if it wasn't bad enough that they're mostly reduced to nodding machines, you can't even ever hear them utter a single word. Very, very disappointing in this day and age. I don't even mean lengthy conversations or any such, obviously, it'd be even more straining and time-consuming. But a few words here and there, a sentence sometimes... would make things much better.

As it is, I picked a voice that I felt fit the character in my head... but I don't really know what for.

[Lilyarel]

*snip*.

Combat voice is a big deal. And the more options allows for different preferences. While we may not say much in cutscenes, we certainly hear ourselves a lot when fighting and that to me gives enough reason to have multiple voice options. Grunts and growls during combat is not much other than flavour, but I would rather have my character making sounds when fighting rather than be a silent Terminator when fighting.

[Averax]

In females: I choose the one that's not a series of high pitched squeals. Generally the one that best fits the aesthetic of my character.

In males: I choose the one that sounds closest to Troy Baker. His voice acting is my favorite.

[Felis]

I don't care a lot for the voice. In fact I wonder why they even bother with those voices. Our character is deaf mute after all. Just sitting there while hands and heads are falling and just nods vertically when he aggrees and horizontally when he disagrees. And most of the times he doesn't move his head at all. The voice is only for the emotes which I really don't care. This is not the thread to complain to SE about this cheap decision. And I'm not falling for the even cheaper excuse that development focuses on other things. It's not that it takes so much time to record few lines with 2-3 actors.

Battle voices and emote voices.
Don't expect voiced speech of our character in 12 different voices and 4 different languages spoken by japanese (i think all voices in the char creator are frome japanese and people would complain if it is not the same voice they have selected). 2-3 actors would be not enough for this.

Or forget that with the 4 different languages and let our character speak japanese only ^^

[DracotheDragon]

Step one: Check the laugh
Step two: Make character and start the game
Step three: Pray the combat noises aren't horrid

oh god tell me about it my male miqote has a nice voice a nice /laugh nice /cheer then i started the game with him and then i heard /happy

/cheer "Yea-he ha"


/happy " "

The horrors

[Lillia]

Step one: Check the laugh
Step two: Make character and start the game
Step three: Pray the combat noises aren't horrid

Hidden Step four: Find that the fall noise is horrid and fantasia x amount of times to fix it until realization of alt voice testing kicks in. ;o

[Kikoten]

What's in a voice for me?

...

Whatever voice gets the gurls

hue

EDIT: Joking aside, I like voices that express hardiness, but also have a soft side. I want a voice that not only I like to listen to, but others like to hear it as well. However, I just fantasia'd my character and gave him a makeover, changing his voice, too, and I thought it was good... until I started fighting. He makes an annoying "Heeyaaaah!" every 2 seconds, and when I'm playing melee DPS in dungeons, I'm silently apologizing to my party every time I throw a strike.

I wish SE added a little bit of diversity to their characters' voices. Hearing the same "Heeyaaaaah!" over and over again becomes grating. They could also have put a delay in between the grunts during fights, and not have the character go "Heeyaaaaaah!" every single time he swings.

EDIT 2: Optional read here: The reason why I find the "Heeyaaaaah!" annoying is because I've attended several martial arts tournaments, in all of which, year to year, I could hear one girl throughout the whole gymnasium, Ki-yahing (for those who don't know, Ki-yah is an expulsion of air through the nose and mouth, sometimes accompanied by a yell to put power into a strike, but not always) like a gods damned heavy metal screamo vocalist on Friday night after 5 whiskies. I'm surprised she even has a voice left, let alone no laryngitis.