Misterious nighttime sounds

[ftsm]

Have you ever been in a forest during deep night time? It has a lot of strange and creepy sounds. Some of them are kinda unexplainable.

It would be cool for game atmosphere to add some random sounds at deep night time. Not annoying, not repetative, but rare and creepy.

E.g. imagine you dig your yard at night and hear scream of deer being killed by wolf. Or falling tree creak. Or sounds of boar, crunching with tree roots.

[Maelstrom]

I agree.  I would love to see ambient sounds that are sporadic to increase the terror aspect of the game.  There's a mod for TOBG that does this excellently and doing something similar would raise VS to a whole new level; however...

Devs desire animal sounds to be associated with animals spawned in game.

[LadyWYT]

Forest noises are creepy? A few of them can be, if you're not familiar enough with nature to know(or at least, have a good guess) as to what's making it. Now more ambient nature noises would definitely be appreciated, and add more layers of atmosphere to the game, but I think the more important factor to consider for triggering a player's terror is to make their own imagination do the work. The darkness level of the game's nighttime/underground already does a hefty amount of the work, as you're not able to see much, leaving your mind free to imagine whatever beasties there may or may not be out there. To hone in on that further with sound, I'd go for more indistinct noises, like a branch occasionally snapping, or dead leaves rustling, that sort of thing. Could have easily been the wind, or a rabbit or fox, but it could easily have been a bear lumbering around in the brush as well. Or even something worse, assuming the new rift monster is more of a stalking type creature. The drifters don't strike me as particularly stealthy creatures, and I'd imagine they'd make plenty of noise crashing through bushes in addition to their groaning.

In regards to friendlier nighttime sounds--we're getting ambient frogs and insects added next update, although I don't know if they will have specific times/weather conditions to be making noises(aside from seasonal variation). Bird sounds would be awesome, even if we don't actually have any birds yet aside from chickens. The other benefit to friendlier background noise is that not does it give the player a cozier environment to immerse themselves in while playing...it also gets them to let their guard down more easily! Which makes the drifters and other monsters that much creepier when you do encounter them. Though I'd also say too that if you had a monster like that out in the woods, the creepier thing wouldn't be so much the noise that it might be making, but rather all the other noises that fall silent when it's around. Nature doesn't typically go absolutely silent unless there's something major about to go down, like a really bad storm.

[Thorfinn]

Dunno. How much harder should it be to find bees?

I personally have no problems distinguishing the sound of bees even with gale winds and rain, (as a result of years of mixing music, picking out the individual instruments and voices, even when they are way back in the mix) but lots of people have trouble with that.

Edited July 31, 2024 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

10 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

I personally have no problems distinguishing the sound of bees even with gale winds and rain, (as a result of years of mixing music, picking out the individual instruments and voices, even when they are way back in the mix) but lots of people have trouble with that.

I can usually pick out the bee buzzing, but sometimes I get really unlucky with the spawns or have issues picking it out from high wind/leaves rustling. In those cases, I just throw on the Buzzwords mod and go back to looking, then remove the mod once I'm done.

I'd say if bee finding really becomes an issue with additional background noise, the bee noises could either be increased a bit, or perhaps there could be an occasional bee spawn within a certain radius of a hive that you could follow back to its home, provided you have sharp eyes.

Similar to the Buzzwords mod and suggested in a different topic, game subtitles could also be turned on to assist as well. Using Minecraft as an example(although it's been a while since I played with the subtitles on), the subtitles indicate the sound type, the sound's intensity, and sometimes include a small arrow to roughly indicate where the sound is coming from(at least, right or left). They're also confined to a small scrolling list in the corner of the screen and fade after a few seconds, so they're not particularly intrusive.

[FlareUKCS]

I dont like the idea, only because as a gamer we rely on what we see and hear in the game (some haptic options exist but not in VS), and as such adding audio just for extra 'creepyness' would make it hard to distinguish audio cues we need to pay attention to and just creepy stuff.

Valheim has a bush rustle noise that plays randomly, initially I reacted but it was just cosmetic, and it got annoying as a result.

[Maelstrom]

Given the theme of the game, additional sounds for the ambience makes sense.  The mod for TOBG I mentioned is horror themed as well and has ambient sounds that are only that - sounds.  At first I was on high alert for something to happen, but once I realized it was just sounds I liked it even more because it brought the world to life!  I would LOVE to hear an occasional echo of a water drop dripping into a pool in the caves.  That one sound alone would make cave diving MUCH more pleasurable.

[FlareUKCS]

I would prefer more in game audio....or enhancing the current ambiant, as in echo in caverns, but adding some random noises that have no fixtures, as is a wolf howl but no wolf around, or bush rustles with no entity that triggered that audio, would you enjoy hearing bush rustles with no entity that make that audio ? I rather have a audio trigger mean something is near, not its creepy but its something you need to be aware of... I dont mind scary audio at night IF there is a something behind the audio.

Think if someone is banging on your door, but if nothing is there its kinda lame... boom boom, hello no one there. I mean I would grab a spear then open the door... and nothing there would just annoy me, I trust the audio extra stuff would just annoyed me unless there was a origin for the audio.

[ftsm]

14 hours ago, FlareUKCS said:

banging on your door

No no. "Bang-bang" is not the sound I meant. The most close case is faint steps behind the door (like a fox running near it. actual fox is not required tho).

They shouldn't be unrealistic, jumpscaring or too repetative.

On 7/31/2024 at 1:34 AM, LadyWYT said:

Forest noises are creepy? A few of them can be, if you're not familiar enough with nature to know

E.G. foxes can make a sound of crying woman, some owls can make "mumbling" sound. Imagine hearing it at a midnight in a deep marsh. Forest is quiet just until it get used to you.

You've got my idea tho

On 7/31/2024 at 1:34 AM, LadyWYT said:

The drifters

I don't want to criticize the game but drifters.. meh they are out of place IMO. At least surface ones. It's kinda weird to have a world of temporal instability and mini skyrim snow trolls

On 7/30/2024 at 10:46 PM, Maelstrom said:

TOBG

I will search it. I hope it supports latest VS version

[LadyWYT]

53 minutes ago, ftsm said:

E.G. foxes can make a sound of crying woman, some owls can make "mumbling" sound. Imagine hearing it at a midnight in a deep marsh. Forest is quiet just until it get used to you.

You've got my idea tho

Very true, hence why I mentioned it depends on how familiar the player is with various sounds of nature. Or even sounds of the unnatural, as it applies to certain game modes. It's why if the ambient noises are just for flavor and have no actual source to produce them, I think they're more effective if they're the friendly, immersive kind of ambience. Some might be a little unnerving at first, to players unfamiliar with them(like a fox scream), but overall they should be a pleasing, immersive part of the world.

In contrast, sounds that indicate danger are much more effective if there's actually something dangerous responsible for making the noise. A monster growl in the distance in the dead of night would certainly be scary the first several times you heard it...until you get enough experience to figure out that it's just an ambient sound effect and there's no actual monster to go with it. From that point, it becomes a sound that's either ignored entirely, or a nuisance because it grabs your attention despite there being no threat. On the other hand, if the sound if produced by an actual entity, then you're alerted to a threat that's nearby and can have a better chance to either avoid it or develop an effective plan to confront it. It also means that you can never fully ignore those sounds, as doing so will likely be to your detriment.

1 hour ago, ftsm said:

I don't want to criticize the game but drifters.. meh they are out of place IMO. At least surface ones. It's kinda weird to have a world of temporal instability and mini skyrim snow trolls

Meh, I don't think that's a criticism, as much as it is an accurate assessment of what they are. Drifters are out of place in the world, because they're from a different dimension/part of time and are displaced by the temporal shenanigans. Whether there's a way to fix time, at least partially, and put a stop to at least some of the instability remains to be seen.

[Maelstrom]

4 hours ago, ftsm said:

I will search it. I hope it supports latest VS version

TOBG = Mincraft.  I was referencing the Betweenlands mod specifically.  That is the only mod that makes minecraft even marginally playable for me.