Audio popping issue

[Grimno]

Coming up on almost a month for this problem for some of us, although it’s finally been acknowledged the official line seems to be it’s your computer not our game.

See my counter to that would be
"Oh it's our computers then? Well then, explain what is happening that is making the audio crackle for your game. No other game has it. Not even Halo Infinite. Why is that?"
Like if it's our computers then clearly they can explain what the "problem" is and how to fix it, and explain why newer CPUs are also having this issue so we know then which CPU to upgrade to.

[GorthRedsteel]

I wonder how many posts can we make before it gets fixed. We have reached over 700 of them in less than a month, and there is no way it's gonna get resolved at 4th of jan.

[Nommers]

Coming up on almost a month for this problem for some of us, although it’s finally been acknowledged the official line seems to be it’s your computer not our game.

I don't know why I feel compelled to defend them after a month of near-total radio silence, but I'm seeing this sentiment a lot and they did walk it back a bit.

Just to clarify, my previous post regarding CPUs that are older than 10 years is one of the possible causes that we have confirmed from the investigation and it is still possible to occur with other CPUs. I apologize if my message wasn't clear on that part.

I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that they blamed old hardware because using an old CPU was the most reliable way they could trigger the bug in their test environment. Still not the best look to go with that excuse right after the bulk of the 2002 problem turned out to be on their end as well, but considering the majority of bug reports seem to have been sent in AFTER that post, they may genuinely not have known any better.

No matter how they go about it, though, intermittent posts by one community manager in one forum thread are not enough to make this right.

Like ClaraKitty said, I'd like to believe that they're staying quiet until they have a guaranteed fix ready to go - after all, the last time they said they fixed it they just made it worse. But at this point, outside of this thread and Soken's twitter, we've received no official assurances that this bug is being looked into at all, and I for one would feel a heck of a lot better if they said anything at all on Lodestone. I know the EN Community Team is away but even their twitter post said they had people still on board watching for problems. This seems like a problem to me. EDIT: I avoid social media like the plague myself, but is anyone making noise about this?

My biggest (purely hypothetical, mind you) fear at this point is that the problem really is entirely with Immerse and something about their agreement makes it so that they can't do or say anything about it until some legal BS gets resolved. And who knows how long that would take?

Doom and gloom over, I'm just so frustrated right now. I'd really love to be able to play the game I'm paying for.

[Sapphos]

I've played since 1.0 with no audio issues then as soon as the spatial audio thing is slapped into the game its a nightmare. Its occasionally so bad that the clipping audio makes me disoriented in raids and it sucks that I have to basically play in silence sometimes when audio (and audio queues) are such a big part of the experience.

[Sorenthaz]

I've played since 1.0 with no audio issues then as soon as the spatial audio thing is slapped into the game its a nightmare. Its occasionally so bad that the clipping audio makes me disoriented in raids and it sucks that I have to basically play in silence sometimes when audio (and audio queues) are such a big part of the experience.

Same here. Pandaemonium 4 is pretty much unplayable because of how bad it is, and I know it's got to be due to the spikes most likely and how objects that come up out of the ground seem to be what's creating problems. I've never had this issue up until Endwalker's launch and it feels like it's been steadily getting worse. I finally caved and decided to at least try out the spatial audio trial to see if that helps at all, as there's no way that the issue isn't related to changes made in order to accommodate that "optional" third party "enhancement". But I ran P4 twice and both times the sound issues were so bad that it was disorienting me and hurting my head. The only options were to try and adjust my camera angle to often look at my own character away from the boss (making it very difficult to see tells and whatnot), or turn audio off altogether which is what I ended up doing both times in the end.

Like it's good that this isn't such a widespread issue that it's creating massive backlash, but it feels horrible that Square Enix hasn't addressed this issue to those of us who are suffering with the audio bugginess, and it feels like we're kind of getting swept under the rug to push sales on the stupid spatial audio thing.

[miragedive]

As someone who’s been dealing with this issue for nearly a month, I feel strange coming here to defend Square but here we are. To everyone saying that we’ve had no feedback, you’re wrong. Mr. Soken has made it very clear on his Twitter that the sound team wants to investigate the issue but cannot do so without proper bug reports and system information in the relevant forum. Those who did post on the bug reports forum can see that the first post reporting the issue has been moved to Accepted Bugs and is currently being investigated before it gets confirmed and we (hopefully) get an official timeline for the fix. It’s a holiday season, and the team deserve a break after the gruelling process of releasing 6.0 and 6.01, plus preparing 6.05. No one is ignoring the issue, or belittling it just because it’s not widespread. It’s just the first time they’ve come across something like this so naturally the process will take some time.

Please have some patience and compassion. Yes, it sucks that we can hardly play the game if at all, but there is nothing more we can do beyond waiting, and supporting the team with any additional information they ask for.

[Jizu]

I don't know why I feel compelled to defend them after a month of near-total radio silence, but I'm seeing this sentiment a lot and they did walk it back a bit.

I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming that they blamed old hardware because using an old CPU was the most reliable way they could trigger the bug in their test environment. Still not the best look to go with that excuse right after the bulk of the 2002 problem turned out to be on their end as well, but considering the majority of bug reports seem to have been sent in AFTER that post, they may genuinely not have known any better.

No matter how they go about it, though, intermittent posts by one community manager in one forum thread are not enough to make this right.

Like ClaraKitty said, I'd like to believe that they're staying quiet until they have a guaranteed fix ready to go - after all, the last time they said they fixed it they just made it worse. But at this point, outside of this thread and Soken's twitter, we've received no official assurances that this bug is being looked into at all, and I for one would feel a heck of a lot better if they said anything at all on Lodestone. I know the EN Community Team is away but even their twitter post said they had people still on board watching for problems. This seems like a problem to me. EDIT: I avoid social media like the plague myself, but is anyone making noise about this?

As someone who’s been dealing with this issue for nearly a month, I feel strange coming here to defend Square but here we are. To everyone saying that we’ve had no feedback, you’re wrong. Mr. Soken has made it very clear on his Twitter that the sound team wants to investigate the issue but cannot do so without proper bug reports and system information in the relevant forum. Those who did post on the bug reports forum can see that the first post reporting the issue has been moved to Accepted Bugs and is currently being investigated before it gets confirmed and we (hopefully) get an official timeline for the fix. It’s a holiday season, and the team deserve a break after the gruelling process of releasing 6.0 and 6.01, plus preparing 6.05. No one is ignoring the issue, or belittling it just because it’s not widespread. It’s just the first time they’ve come across something like this so naturally the process will take some time.

I get what you guys are saying and I'd say I'm a very patient person. I don't want any problems with SE or anyone involved.
I don't want to feel this resentment bubbling up when I even boot the game up to check for new/updates/anything.
All I'm asking for currently (besides a fix) is an official response. Not a Twitter post. Not some Forum acknowledgement about it being investigated.
The very first time we "made it" onto the 'Known Issues' List was on the 7th. That was already very late IMO to give us an official response when it started on the 3rd. And since 6.01 the "public" only knows that it's been 'fixed'.
No one in my personal circle has the sound issues. No one in my FC has the sound issues. They have no clue anyone is having major Problems with the Release STILL. (Besides me venting once, but they're to busy chatting about the raids anyway..)

We all agree that usually SE is VERY good with customer service and direct connection to the community, it pains me to feel so left alone.

If they really are investigating it gives us something to feel seen. None of this 'search the forums, search the Twitter', because even when I went directly to Soken's Twitter and looked through his posts/responses/likes I could not see a recent acknowledgement. (I'm not saying there isn't one. I'm just saying its not easily found.)

This game is for many people, and I'm sure there are a good handful that aren't as involved in PC's and the Internet as we believe we all are. Old and Young play this game. There is a Recent Info Panel on the Launcher for a reason.

[Nommers]

We all agree that usually SE is VERY good with customer service and direct connection to the community, it pains me to feel so left alone.

If they really are investigating it gives us something to feel seen. None of this 'search the forums, search the Twitter', because even when I went directly to Soken's Twitter and looked through his posts/responses/likes I could not see a recent acknowledgement. (I'm not saying there isn't one. I'm just saying its not easily found.)

For the most part I agree with miragedive, but I think what Jizu said here is really the core of my concerns at this point. Official communication, that sense of having a direct line to a highly responsive dev team, has been a major pillar of this game's success, especially over the last year. I think it really speaks to CBU3's reputation that this thread is even a fraction as civil as it is. When they said 6.01 would fix the stutter, I had absolute faith in them. I've seen Soken's tweets (they're there, just... buried), and obviously I've seen the forum posts. I don't doubt that the problem is being investigated. But I think it's natural to feel a little shaken by seeing Lodestone so neglected for so long when the issue is as severe as it is for many of us.

It's been a month already - we all just want to go back to enjoying the game. Throw in the business angle with Immerse and you have a recipe for doubt and diminished trust. One quick update that everyone can see saying it's a known issue would calm a lot of nerves.

With all that said, if the silence IS because of the holidays, then I genuinely do hope the team are enjoying their break. I was lucky enough to finish Endwalker before the stutter became truly unbearable and they certainly deserve it.

[shandreax]

Why do we need a fix just give us an option to use original sound options it worked great prior. This is taking to long to set up a toggle option from the login screen.

[Ifrinne]

Using the immersive soundpack helps with the stutter and makes it much less but this means id need to spend more just to enjoy. Also the immersive audio misses out on the more high pitched sounds when moves are used making it sound muffled. I cannot seem to improve this