This match was the most egregious when it comes to audio issues I’ve seen so far, it’s like the whole thing loaded with the sound effects volumes completely out of whack for everything. Background noise felt oddly muted while other sound effects were oddly pronounced, but you’ll get it when you watch the videos.
So it’s just after capping a point and it’s quiet in the area. Here I’m standing right in front of a WB team mate who requests healing, but the only thing you hear is the sound effect when the heal request notification pops up in the chat messages area, no voice request. If the area hadn’t been completely quiet I wouldn’t have even noticed the request! How many times did team mates request healing and I had no idea, because the only indication was the message sound effect?:
Then not much later, a Symmetra shoots her energy balls at me point blank from the side off screen, but I don’t hear anything. The only thing you can hear is the sound effect when the blasts hit, you don’t hear the charging up or the shooting sound effects at all. When it goes to killcam you can hear the sound effects from the Symmetra’s point of view, but they’re strangely very low:
Finally, a Tracer flanks me from behind. You can’t hear her shooting sound effects at all, the only sound effects you hear are from when the shots land. Again in killcam you can hear the shooting from the Tracer’s perspective, but it’s somewhat low. The problem isn’t so much knowing that I’m getting attacked, that much is clear from the UI red blood ring and the fact I can hear I’m getting hit, the problem is that without hearing the original shots themselves I have no directionality to understand where the shots are coming from. Not knowing where the shots are coming from means I’m just confused and have to look around to figure out who’s attacking me from where:
I honestly don’t know how many of these persisting audio issues I have to post. This stuff is game breaking, if I can’t tell when teammates need heals they won’t get heals, if I can’t hear flanking enemies shots I can’t spatially react accordingly in time to do anything about it.
These posts are practically becoming a weekly ritual for me now. 