Merrevail mobs - no voices?

[TesalionLortus]

I haven't been killing these for quite some time now but I've just been to Angmar and I noticed they lost their female voices. Then I run the Court of Seregost and the voices were gone as well. They just make some generic bat screeches and that's it.

I thought it's a bug but same for Mirrors, and same everywhere else in the world apparently, no matter the region. What happened? They all feel super generic now. If I was to run through Mordor and Minas Morgul content now, so heavily focused around Lhaereth and Seregost, it would feel super unimmersive with these voices gone. Don't tell me it was intentional

[auximenes]

Is it possible is that you filtered the sound(s) out?

[TesalionLortus]

Very unlikely since I never do that but I can extra check. Is it just me then ?

[TesalionLortus]

Checked, it's not filtered out. Sooo... can we have the voices back please?

[MadeofLions]

Checked, it's not filtered out. Sooo... can we have the voices back please?

I think you're misremembering this one. I looked at the scripts that handle sound FX on the merrevail skills, and most of them haven't changed since 2012. They've always had bat-inspired sound FX, and in the cases where they do actually speak (such as for instance bosses, or for Lhaereth the Stained), they have their own VO lines and don't take from a shared pool.

MoL

[TesalionLortus]

I think you're misremembering this one. I looked at the scripts that handle sound FX on the merrevail skills, and most of them haven't changed since 2012. They've always had bat-inspired sound FX, and in the cases where they do actually speak (such as for instance bosses, or for Lhaereth the Stained), they have their own VO lines and don't take from a shared pool.

Hardly. Unless something is specifically wrong on my end (?), they used to make these female moans and such when hit, it was pretty creepy and fitting. I'm positive I can find it on some old video somewhere in the depths of internet, moment... Here, 5:47 after she gets hit and dies, a female voice.

I may need to check again in the game, I guess, and make sure these are really gone? Maybe something was just weird in this one session I had? But I did run the Court and didn't hear any female voices, just screeches. Will see again how it goes and report back.

[MadeofLions]

I'm positive I can find it on some old video somewhere in the depths of internet, moment... Here, 5:47 after she gets hit and dies, a female voice.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't hear anything like you're describing at this spot in the video - and I looked up some other merrevail videos and they're all the same squeaking sort of bat-lady sound effects I remember them being. And I asked Bill about it, and he says nothing's changed on the sound engineering front. Back in the day, before we used an external sound recording studio, we had some pretty over-the-top sound effects for our human brigands, but as I remember them the merrevail didn't get the same treatment.

MoL

[TesalionLortus]

Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't hear anything like you're describing at this spot in the video - and I looked up some other merrevail videos and they're all the same squeaking sort of bat-lady sound effects I remember them being.L

Can't be! Maybe it's just terminology confusion? They used to make bat sound effects (like animals and bat mobs) and yes, also the "female bat lady" ones - these ones clearly of human female voice disposition, not just an animalistic squeak of a bat. And that's the ones I'm missing.

Well, I did look for a while as well... it's hard to notice that sound in gameplay videos over all the voice over and people's commentary. But I isolated it in Audition, still a bit quiet, but that's the one I mean.: https://voca.ro/19lDDwC5QYY6

[TesalionLortus]

OK, so something is definitely off. Run Court of Seregost a few times, then took a trip to Seregost on landscape. All this time, and I managed to make them make these particular sounds on extremely rare occasion, and these are literally the only ones I came across from this "female" set that I mean: 1 and 2.

Now, if you listen to the attached isolated sound, taken from that video I linked, it has 3 different sounds of this female type, all immediately in succession on hits, and some of these more female variants should be there on death as well. You should normally be hearing these sounds fairly regularly when killing these. It's like most of these sound variants just disappeared (you can tell, because the fight is almost quiet, aside from short outright screeches and just bat sounds) and from what's there for "clearly strongly female" the chance of it appearing is as if it was reduced to 1% or something super low like that. It definitely wasn't like this before. You could hear them as "females" - with uh oh ah - all the time and very clearly. Killing Merrevail now feels exactly like killing Mervyl does - a few screeches and beastly sounds, for the most part, plus a very slight chance for one of these that I managed to screenshot. But the bottom line is killing the female ones used to feel more like you were killing and hitting *females*, and that creepy female vibe kinda gave them that immersive angle. Which fits the concept behind this race and the fact females are supposed to be higher in hierarchy, more alluring Valkyrie type and act as "the brains", while the males are more disposable and lack allure - hence they never got that more "humanized" "soft" sound treatment and the sounds Mervyl ever made, at least in fights, were always beastly and 100% bat-like. This was a pretty iconic, in-depth distinction for sound design there = simply by hitting them you knew how their differed. Not sure why it's gone

Anyway, to keep it simpler, what I mean is exactly like it can be heard in the earlier linked video (the mob at the linked time or the one before it), they make the squeaky (but clearly female) uh oh ah in succession on each hit. Killing rooms of Merrevail used to sound like this, lots of female moans uh ah's and such. Now it's not there. It took me 3 attempts at the Court and a physical trip to Seregost on landscape to hear just a few rare ah's. Happened literally just 3-4 times, easily forgettable.

I don't have anything filtered out. So either many of these specific sounds are just not there for some reason in the "on hit" pool OR their chance of appearing got reduced so strongly that... after extensive killings I couldn't even hear all 3 variants of the ah's from the linked isolated audio. (Whereas in that audio they get triggered in succession for a single mob all within 1 second...)

[auximenes]

I haven't fought any merrovail recently, but the video clip you showed (at 5:47) is how I remember it, with multiple common 'female' injury sounds during each fight.

[auximenes]

Anyway, to keep it simpler, what I mean is exactly like it can be heard in the earlier linked video (the mob at the linked time or the one before it), they make the squeaky (but clearly female) uh oh ah in succession on each hit. Killing rooms of Merrevail used to sound like this, lots of female moans uh ah's and such.

I haven't fought any merrovail recently, but the video clip you showed (at 5:47) is how I remember it, with multiple common 'female' injury sounds during each fight.

[YamydeAragon]

I haven't been killing these for quite some time now but I've just been to Angmar and I noticed they lost their female voices. Then I run the Court of Seregost and the voices were gone as well. They just make some generic bat screeches and that's it.

I thought it's a bug but same for Mirrors, and same everywhere else in the world apparently, no matter the region. What happened? They all feel super generic now. If I was to run through Mordor and Minas Morgul content now, so heavily focused around Lhaereth and Seregost, it would feel super unimmersive with these voices gone. Don't tell me it was intentional

I do recall very clearly that the ones with female like bodies had a human like voice & shrieks. The ones with male like bodies only made shrieks. Some special ones even had voice dialog (both male & female voices). It was that way 15 years ago & till some months ago, haven't noticed if it changed as i haven't fought any those recently. But im gonna do the Lamentation instance in a bit & pay attention to it, then will let you know. & i do agree, if the human like voice is gone (on purpose or accidental) that is very inmersion breaking because they are not beasts but sentient humanoids.

[TesalionLortus]

& i do agree, if the human like voice is gone (on purpose or accidental) that is very inmersion breaking because they are not beasts but sentient humanoids.

Well, technically, as I documented my observations in that longer post, some of these voices can still be heard if you're lucky. So technically they still appear to be there, or at least some of these, but in practice you gotta be really lucky to hear these... whereas previously all you had to do was slam a bat lady 3 to 4 times to hear these female oh ah uh's get triggered in succession, with any "bat screeches" and more beastly sounds acting as accompanying sounds, not dominating ones.

So yeah, would be nice to have these back like before. Not sure what or even when it happened. Wasn't paying much attention to the Merrevail for some time.

[Mirhaen]

It may have something to do with the lag maybe, because ever since lag got worst, I'm missing like half of audio, which is especially noticeable in instances.

[YamydeAragon]

Well, technically, as I documented my observations in that longer post, some of these voices can still be heard if you're lucky. So technically they still appear to be there, or at least some of these, but in practice you gotta be really lucky to hear these... whereas previously all you had to do was slam a bat lady 3 to 4 times to hear these female oh ah uh's get triggered in succession, with any "bat screeches" and more beastly sounds acting as accompanying sounds, not dominating ones.

So yeah, would be nice to have these back like before. Not sure what or even when it happened. Wasn't paying much attention to the Merrevail for some time.

Maybe it have to do on how the person calibrate the sound volumes at LOTRO, that in my opinion the default volumes are a hot mess. At the moment all default volumes are all blasted up the same as high, making it difficult to tell the sounds appart. Things that should be softer are too loud, but when the player change those calibrations, discover many sounds that they didn't notice before.

Also the devs in charge of LOTRO sound, seriously need to take a look on how the game save those customizations. Every time i do some update to the game or switch the output object to hear the sounds, all the LOTRO sounds customizations get reseted to default & that is not ok.

[TesalionLortus]

Maybe it have to do on how the person calibrate the sound volumes at LOTRO, that in my opinion the default volumes are a hot mess.

I tested this with everything maxed and music nerfed, plus I was monitoring with the "record" function and many of these female like moans and shrieks we used to hear simply don't trigger at all, at least in my case.

But yeah, I do agree some of the sounds are badly calibrated, though I don't really think it's such an issue for regular sounds and ambience, but it is a massive issue when all these voiced dialogues for NPCs appear too quiet that sometimes can't be heard over the music (or some specific music tracks being TOO loud compared with others). My usual setup is music maxed to always hear Bill's work + voiceover/UI/ambience maxed, and then combat effects nerfed (the hack and slash sounds) so they aren't as overwhelming.

[YamydeAragon]

I tested this with everything maxed and music nerfed, plus I was monitoring with the "record" function and many of these female like moans and shrieks we used to hear simply don't trigger at all, at least in my case.

But yeah, I do agree some of the sounds are badly calibrated, though I don't really think it's such an issue for regular sounds and ambience, but it is a massive issue when all these voiced dialogues for NPCs appear too quiet that sometimes can't be heard over the music (or some specific music tracks being TOO loud compared with others). My usual setup is music maxed to always hear Bill's work + voiceover/UI/ambience maxed, and then combat effects nerfed (the hack and slash sounds) so they aren't as overwhelming.

I prefer for better results, to set it on several intermediate degrees instead all blasted up or all put all the way down.

[TesalionLortus]

So can anyone confirm they noticed that too? The lack of female uh ah oh reactions on hits, which makes fights with them almost silent now apart from few occasional screechy sounds?

Is still the same for me. With MoL saying that nothing was changed for X years I don't know what to think now... is it just me?

[auximenes]

I spent a little time in Seregost and The Fanged Pit listening to the merrovail sounds. The Seregost ones made no noises other than their defeat noise, the ones in the Pit seemed to make the traditional range of noises when they were damaged but it was hard to test since they are level 50 1-shots.

[TesalionLortus]

So it is missing, then. Not just me. Really sounds like my observations were correct, many of these "on hit" female reactions they made are either just missing or they trigger super rarely. Could you maybe look into it again, MoL, if you have a moment? There is definitely something amiss here and I would love "the ladies" to have their immersive, unique reactions back, eventually!

About the one-shots though, yeah, I did get 1 or 2 types of the "female on hit" sounds out of them, but super rarely, and usually from a bow but never in actual combat. So very weird. It's like most of these are gone or don't trigger properly as they used to.