The music so far is very reminiscent of Dunkirk's soundtrack but would definitely love some throwback cues to the original CoH soundtrack themes!

Whoever came up with the line for grenadiers when capturing territory that went "Hey dummkopf, do you see our flag? No? Then raise it!" is a genius and the voice actor executed it perfectly

I think a lot of sounds need a lot of work, the voice acting is largely forgettable and the music gets very repetitive after a few hours. For the VOs, I don't know if it's the direction or the voice actors themselves but something needs to change because I find it hard to imagine that grandpa from the retirement home is leading an MG42 crew in a mid-war setting. The Germans should sound like they are on edge, like they've been jolted awake from a nap or something, no more vacationing in Italy, it's time for war. As for the music, I really like the ambient tracks but the battle music is quite repetitive and even annoying at times. Perhaps you can make a system where the ambience and loud music are separately adjustable for players?

The small arms sounds that are good are the ones that sound snappy and powerful (Mosin Nagant/SMLE) or imitate something iconic about the gun like the MG42s loud buzzing or the knocking sounds of the .30 cal and MG34. CoH2 had awesome sounding rifles and machine-guns but kinda weak sounding SMGs and pistols with the exception of the Thompson. So I would like to hear more impressive sounding Grease guns, Stens and MP40s and the like.

One of the things that I liked about CoH2 was the sound design, you could hear things in the fog of war like bushes being trampled and branches being snapped. You could hear the low rumble of a heavy tank approach the edge of your vision ready to annihilate whatever its looking at. I'm not sure how else you can expand upon this except by adding more distinct sounds and perhaps more sounds to vehicles in general, like the sound of brakes being slammed or eased on as a vehicle slows to a stop. Add the sound of an engine on its last legs or the snapping rhythm of a dying transmission under heavy combat, there's so much that could be put into a game like this.

All that being said, the game is very promising right now, I hope to see much growth soon!

Good luck to Relic! :D

SoulReaver wrote:

Okay IDK the details but why MG42 doesn't sound as good as it did in CoH 1? I thought it sounded great in vCoH, but it doesn't sound as nearly as good in neither CoH 2 nor CoH 3? Am I wrong?

Second this. The MG42 sound sucks right now. It should be the scariest sounding MG in the game.

I really like how things sound in urban environments. I love the echoes. 

My other gripe is the wehrmacht announcer is really bland sounding. 

It was pretty obvious, for me at least, that just about everything needs work. That's absolutely fine at this stage in development, but some of it definitely needs more work than others. I think that the weapons need the most work at the moment. It almost seemed like the wrong sounds were used on purpose to know what has and has not been properly applied with a new sound sample. I don't think it can be understated how important it is for each weapon to sound as the player expects and has the desired impact on the player experience. I remember several instances where players had questioned a few weapon sounds in CoH2, just to find out how accurate they really were.

Like many others, I was not wholly impressed with the VOs. I know that in this early stage very little is compiled, but it's also important to be able to distinguish which different unit is calling out for a thrown grenade or other threats. Having humorous lines or idle chit-chat is nice but I need to know who's dying! Some of this may simply be due to a lack familiarity with the new voices, though I don't think the gripes many players have with the current VOs can be completely waived either.

The music, to be brutally honest, seemed mostly generic. The menu theme didn't seem like anything super special (the composer seemed to be trying way too hard for something "grand" and it just fell flat) and I remember most tracks being fairly average. The only two I remember were the only "combat" track from the multiplayer pre-alpha for being so awful and repetitive that I turned off all music, and the British "combat" track from the campaign pre-alpha for being actually thematic. Again, some of this could clearly be filler or be changed later but as it stands currently I would just have all music off.

With all that said, I'm still confident that the sound design will be heavily improved in the coming months. I very much look forward to a very immersive experience that can only be brought to life through good and well thought-out sounds, VOs and music. This is an aspect that can be easily overlooked, but it becomes very apparent to players very quickly when any of these are missing or just don't sound quite right. Best of luck in the work to come.

I liked how battlefield 5 music was, as the battle was going to an end the music would get louder and aggressive, i think will be great for coh, as the victory points get low, it would make it a lot more heroic and give adrenaline rush with loud music and announcer. 

Hi AJ & @JohnT_RE ,

AJ you specifically asked for positive feedback too not just constructive, check out my general feedback. Click that hyperlink. If you don't want to read my entire post you can skip to to fourth or fifth bullet point regarding sound. Your team was the star of this last MP slice in my humble opinion. I said that in that post dated way before this thread so I'm not brown-nosing it's what I felt at the time of playing. At such an early stage I know VO and mg sound will get tweaked so not worried on that front. It stood out and pulled us into the game....keep it up. I did make a request in one of my threads you can find my music thread it relates to this topic but selecting prior CoH soundtracks would be epic creating our own mix preferences. It won't dismiss CoH 3 music but potentially broaden the variety and nostalgia as well. Or have it as unlockable perks to get players to grind. It's not gameplay related so pushback would be minimal.

Art of War

It's hard to remember with the alphas being so long ago. I do however remember really enjoying the sounds of vehicle combat. Specifically being able to hear when rounds penetrate, when they half penetrate, and when they bounce. I was thoroughly impressed with that sound of a round hitting armour and sliding off.

Other than that I don't really remember too much. Audio cues for action that is happening is always helpful though (grenades, breaching, etc).

The audio of the destruction of the buildings is going to the right direction in my opinion. I would like the units to have different voice actors and to also have those jokes/curses from time to time because ofc, people are cursing when they are stressed and in a war people are stressed out. I kind of dislike the sound when a tank is destroyed because it sounds more or less like a balloon in my opinion.

I don't know if this is the right place but it would freakin awesome if we got native language voices for factions! At least maybe as an option. 

I also second the idea of native language option for factions if it is possible. Maybe partial native voice lines could be an idea as well?

In general though I think it's important the voice lines are distinctive between different types of units, some are better than others. There also didn't seem to be as much urgency or panic as I expected sometimes during combat as well. Some explosions just sound fake in the game at the moment and, as the consensus seems to lie, I also agree that machine guns like the MG42 are lack luster.

Contrary to some, I think the menu music is great. I don't really remember the in game music and would often end up turning it down or off entirely in strategy games anyway.

I think the sound was good , but  native language voices would make the game more realistic.

I must say it's a lot more immersing than any of the 2 CoHs combined. But I have some suggestions. 

1. Would be cool to have many many voice lines for dif situations same as in CoH2, alerting the player in a realistic way. 

2. Maybe cut down some of the "cringe" lines? Like the cliche lines, or at least to not encourage repeating words such as the Germans spamming "Kinder"(Kinda silly to use).

3. So far, the music isn't bad nor is it memorable such the CoH1 track or the Soviet CoH3 track, seems very well done but lacks an emotion to it, it's very "blank" if I must say so, in CoH1 the music was meant to represent a more or less sadness of war while in CoH2 the mix of courage and "no-choice" of the soviet army in sacrificing themselves to protect the homeland. 

4. Maybe each faction could it get it's sub-tracks? Germans having their own style, and so on and the main music being more Italian/Mediteranean? 

5. Maybe, add more chatter between the units when off-combat? To feel much more alive, and please add a soldier asking another (allies) "Have you seen that bear carring an artilery box on his back? What...?" a refference to Wojtek the Polish soldier bear which also took part during the Monte Casino battle.

That's my list, hope you at least find smth useful in it and carry on, so far on the right path, so far the Relic we know and love,
Ghost.

1. On the weapon sounds I do agree with everyone on the MG 42 needs to more iconic and terrifying, additionally weapons in the game should be easily recognizable and identible to the original expected sound of them. For example the FG 42 doesn't sound much like the real weapon and is very silent (CoH2 I think was closest to the truth there aswell as for the Thompson as someone above pointed out) - Real FG 42 in action - https://youtu.be/7x6LibuC4N0?t=29 - what a Banger!
   
   
2. The music is still early to say but I only remembered the one at the main menu that had the original CoH feeling and was pretty good. However I can't seem to rembember any other ones maybe because I was too busy trying new thing or they were unimpresive. I still don't pay mutch attention to the game music while playing in CoH2 except for a very few tracks but CoH1 had some great music, especially the British one https://youtu.be/GSbolJCoKns?list=PLEF263883C970B1D4&t=43 (Brings good memories and joy to listed to it - very thematic)
   
   
3. I think native VO for each faction is a long awaited feature for the CoH franchise an already present on lots of games like World of Tanks, Warthunder, Red Orchestra, Battlefield series and so on... The option to choose between native or English (or other languages depending on localization) will be much appreciated. Currently players are using German or Russian localization files (Via a common Steam trick) when they are playing the Germans or the Russians - The problem with this is that is very impractical and it changes all spoken language in the game, not just the faction they are playing.
   
   
4. Lets get back to VO in the game. COH1 had the best VO in any game I have ever played. Each unit had a plethora of VO (around 30-50 min per individual unit if put into a video length perspective). The VO was delivered in very emotional tone and was very immersive (you could feel that the units were actually fighting a war and trying to survive with the bits of dark hummor and some silly jokes here and there). The units reacted to everything around the appropriately and you could really feel the chaos of battle - https://youtu.be/sn2xk5_knKc?t=166 (this is a video demonstrates that). The Germans sounded more German and more serious instead of the boring ones that are present in the OKW (CoH2) and the too silly or bland ones in CoH3 (are they even caring about the war).
   Here are the Grenadiers from CoH1 compared to CoH2 grens (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCTf61qDGSY&ab_channel=Povidis5374 / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHCdj8O2rKE&ab_channel=miragefla) They are incomparable and based on what I was able to observe in the demo the VO in CoH3 is more in-line with CoH2 which is disappointment.
   
   
5. The announcers VO is the worst in my opinion (thankfully not as bad as the OKW in CoH2). They sound uninterested and they don't put much emotion in what they are saying. Additionally they don't give enough Intel on what is happening in the battle. Here is the PE Announcer in CoH1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYaT8p0UhzA&ab_channel=Kiwithe3rd compared to the Ostheer one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49AInridex8&ab_channel=miragefla which is a big downgrade but not as much as the OKW one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKAqDbx8ZsY&ab_channel=miragefla - When comparing notice the sheer number of different quotes the PE announcer has for different things and the emotion tone and multiple variations of the same speech multiple times ( If only I could play CoH2 with CoH1 VO)
   Little thing but the units are not telling the player to fuck off when clicking multiple times on them :D
   
   Anyway I'm very grateful to Relic for the opportunity to give us players these Pre-Alpha Demos (Campaing and Multiplayer) and this forum where we can voice our opinions and concerns before the game releases so that we together can shape up the game that both Relic and the players will be happy to play and grow with.
   Goodluck guys I wish you all the best for 2022

I liked the voice line "everyone still breathing?!"

There also needs to be a voice line for the Americans which congratulates Conrad for tying his shoelaces