Combat Sound Effects Distorted

[TaleraRistain]

I'm also having this same issue, along with half of my free company. Most of the folks affected seem to have PCs with motherboards that are several years old (5-6). We've tried routing through USB audio, some of us have changed windows audio settings to 44.1khz instead of studio quality, changing listening positions, disabling things like the realtek hd audio manager, and there hasn't been much change for most people. From what I've heard from our PS4 players and players unaffected by this issue, the sound is really worth it, so we have about half our FC not willing to do MSQ because they don't want to have to play the game with no sound on.

Yes, mine is older, too. I wanted a new PC for Endwalker but our washer decided to go kaput so adulting came first. I was also fine Wednesday night when playing. It's just since EW release that things have tanked. I'm not willing to do MSQ without sound either. Figure I'll craft and gather and finish clearing my retainers today if I can get online at all.

[MoteVoyager]

Having the same issue. Audio crackling and stuttering, especially in combat.

[YukikoKurosawa]

So as many people including myself pointed out a lot of the sound issues are the actions making the same sound that's made when you do combo actions out of order. I said that I discovered this issue in the job actions trailer.

Take a listen to the Samurai trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9d8eI2ohLA

Right away anyone who's played Samurai will notice something wrong. The weak dinging sounds happen when you perform Gekko without doing the first two attacks (Hakaze > Jinpu) in the combo first. Except now, even done in order, it makes that sound.

I also noted Riot Blade in the Paladin trailer having the same sound issue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SQaF6L1rtY

This problem already existed in development. They showcased the job changes with these sound problems in fully display. They knew about it all along. So we can surmise that either they just don't care about it, or it's an INTENTIONAL change. They think it's an improvement, which would be extremely strange as it makes no sense why they would deliberately change the sounds to what they had already designed to sound like when you are literally playing your job incorrectly. Those combo-out-of-order sounds sound weak intentionally to signal to the player that you're performing your combo wrong, so you know just be listening that you did your combo out of sync. The devs knew these sounds were crappy before, that was the point. You do your combo incorrectly : crappy, unimpactful sound. You do your combo CORRECLTY: satisfying, very impactful sound.

Why intentionally make them the base sounds after all these years? It doesn't make sense which leads me to believe it was a mistake, something went wrong with the Endwalker client. But the job actions trailer shows these problems were already there before launch and they knew about it.

Which is why I'm not optimistic about them changing it, but maybe if enough of us complain they'll turn it back.

[opheamro]

Similar issue here since 6.0, though for me all sounds are distorted. Only happens on bluetooth headphones though - (analog) speakers are fine, and analog headphones are fine. Also, the game now crashes every time I switch sound device while playing - previously worked fine. Something really regressed in this patch...

[OliviaBadger]

Definitely noticed the sound effect for correctly executing combos is not there anymore and it sounds as if you're using weaponskills out of combo constantly - it's a bit offputting

And yes like Yukiko pointed out, it's clearly audible(or not, whichever way you want to look at it) in the job actions trailer.

I hope it's just a bug that will be fixed and not an intentional change as they sounded pretty cool before

[Gayel]

Same issues and framerate drops

[Asteria_Solstice]

Same issue here, muffled, low, out of balance sound effect. The more players around, the worst it gets,example 24man raid, sometimes i could barely even hear the sound effects. Please fix it soon.

[Tjyrr]

Same here.

[Cenne]

I know it may not seem like the "BEST" option, but if you wanna fix your sound before SE fixes it with a patch, you could add the Immerse sound thingy under your sound options. That has fixed the sound issue for myself and a friend of mine who was experiencing the same. Yes it cost 16 bucks, but at least now no more sound stutter in combat.

It was really easy to set up too.

[Sylaria]

I know it may not seem like the "BEST" option, but if you wanna fix your sound before SE fixes it with a patch, you could add the Immerse sound thingy under your sound options. That has fixed the sound issue for myself and a friend of mine who was experiencing the same. Yes it cost 16 bucks, but at least now no more sound stutter in combat.

It was really easy to set up too.

Why do I feel like this is WHY it's broken. To get you to buy it. Maybe I'm extremely pessimistic haha