wittyscorpion
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All warfare is based on deception.
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Post by wittyscorpion on Nov 17, 2012 15:37:39 GMT -5
Having seen multiple threads complaining about BO2's lack of appeal to sound whoring, I decided to do some tests this morning in Combat Training.
The setup:
1) Equipment: my 3 year old Turtle Beach gaming headphone 2) Map: Drone (lots of indoor areas and distinct surfaces 3) Bots: no friendly, 9 enemies at Hardened.
Tests:
1) Audio premix comparison: Treyarch Mix (default) vs. Headphone vs Super Crunch.
2) Perk comparison a) zero sound whore perks, b) Awareness only, c) Dead Silence only, d) Awareness and Dead Silence
My take after the tests:
1) Although most of the time it is not a problem, occasionally the music can mess you up;
2) In the audio aspect, BO2 is a beautifully made game. It has rich environmental sound, weapon sound, movement sound, and equipment sound.
3) Sound whoring, especially against enemy movement sound, is doable. It is not as easy as in MW3, but once you become familiar with maps' environment sound, you'll be able to become more aware of the enemy movement sound on top of it. To make an analogy to visual: this is very similar to the fact that once you become familiar with the map you'll be able to make out enemy behind Mind Bullets spots easier.
4) Premix settings: personally I recommend Super Crunch. The default and Headphone settings are totally usable, but Suer Crunch might be able to give you a tiny bit more edge. To make an analogy, some players feel that "Color Blind Assist" help them with visual even though they are not color blind at all.
5) Dead Silence: I personally like this perk a lot due to the fact that it removes the biggest noise against sound whoring in the game: your own movement, which is loud as hell in BO2.
6) Awareness: this helps tremendously after you have become familiar with the environment sound and what sound enemies make when walking on different surfaces. Due to the loudness of your own movement sound without DS, to fully take advantage of this you need to either stay still (hard tactical loitering), or have Dead Silence on.
7) Awareness vs. Dead Silence: I can hardly hear them. When I was tactical loitering indoors sound whoring against 9 hardened bots, most of my deaths are from DS-equipped Bots sneaking up on me. Non-DS bots got prefired or wall hacked before they even have a line of sight on me.
My 2 cents regarding tips:
1) Turn down music volume. I like the music so I don't want it to be completely off, and found 60-70% mark is a happy compromise for me.
2) Experiment with Premix settings and found the best for you. Personally recommend Super Crunch.
3) Consider DS, not only for making yourself more stealthy, but more importantly, reduce noise for your own sound whoring.
4) DS + Awareness is a great combo.
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GoHarvard
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It's not that serious.
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Post by GoHarvard on Nov 17, 2012 15:57:03 GMT -5
I prestiged so I don't have Awareness or DS. You're a jerk for not posting this yesterday bro.
JK! Thanks for this info. I'm going to keep it in mind when I get higher in rank.
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wittyscorpion
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All warfare is based on deception.
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Post by wittyscorpion on Nov 17, 2012 16:22:15 GMT -5
:-)
More testing by adding friendly:
1) since there are a lot of fights going on all over the map, the background noise increased significantly. I do need to try a lot harder in order to hear the enemy movements.
2) Awareness does not seem to suppress friendly's movement sound. At least not significant enough for me.
3) Stance seems to affect the loudness of the movement sound significantly. Sprinting enemies are not hard to hear, crouch walking on the other hand is very hard if not entirely silent.
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Post by randyrandy on Nov 17, 2012 16:31:14 GMT -5
Yeah I tried out the combo and did surprisingly good. 24-2 and 12-4 in TDM (low scores though :/). I was able to hear people inside rooms but sometimes could not hear any footsteps from the otherside of a wall.
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wittyscorpion
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All warfare is based on deception.
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Post by wittyscorpion on Nov 17, 2012 17:06:15 GMT -5
Yeah I tried out the combo and did surprisingly good. 24-2 and 12-4 in TDM (low scores though :/). I was able to hear people inside rooms but sometimes could not hear any footsteps from the otherside of a wall. On Drone: when inside the factory I can hear players running outside (path to B flag) quite well.
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Post by Voice from the Basement on Nov 17, 2012 17:39:45 GMT -5
…but sometimes could not hear any footsteps from the otherside of a wall. That's it – this is the main problem.
As for me, I still think the only good game for soundwhorring was MW2. I've used soundwhorring in BOII only for a few times for now.
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toysrme
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Post by toysrme on Nov 17, 2012 18:16:01 GMT -5
the big issue is that the balance between weapon and exposions VS audio cues like reloads, map interaction sounds and footsteps is much more now.
the other reason why dead silence in pub matches is useless is because it's not needed. if you sight your weapon you are virtually noiseless. (which is great combined with Stock!) that makes awareness much more useful in-practice.
i noticed (with everyone else) how off the mix was for footsteps, tho i've managed to adjust to it. you simply have to keep the people youre playing with to SHUT THE FLIP UP AND QUIT CRYING. as long as people are quiet, you can hear audio cues someone is coming without awareness. with awareness you don't have an issue.
the best sound game was W@W. treyarch did their own sound engine and it was very PC like on console. it is the only sound engine on console i know of that attempts to process ecoing and occlusion off of map surfaces (the sound interacts with walls). this has been widespread on PC for over a deadcade., but processing requirements generally keep this off console titles. (it was obviously dropped for it's overhead. W@W has the worst FPS drops on console. once you start fighting MP40juggs with PPSH-SP's as soon as a smoke grenade is throw LoL!)
the BEST sound whoring game was cod4/W@W. dead silence did NOT make you completely silent. MW2 was an unbalanced piece of trash in the sound department. there was never a reason to take dead silence off, on any class, at any time, especially in competitive games. you could put sitrep on in pubs, but still.
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Nov 25, 2012 1:34:53 GMT -5
4) DS + Awareness is a great combo. No it isn't. I have tried running this combo with nice headphones and have literally ran into and bumped off of people I could not hear on Hijacked. Outside on the damned wooden deck... with them sprinting w/extreme conditioning. It's plain retarded.
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Post by seanbateman on Nov 25, 2012 3:12:50 GMT -5
This is a great thread and all to try and make an awful situation better, but the fact is the sound is this game is broken, and that is because of bad game design/testing. I have posted complaints on here complaining of the sound and claimed that awareness was useless. It isn't useless, I do hear enemies sometimes when I am using this perk. The thing is: it's seriously only 50% of enemies who aren't using dead silence that I will hear. It also depends on the map whether or not I'll hear enemies at all. My biggest complaint in the whole sound department is that it makes two of the perks broken and mostly useless.
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Post by thegentleman on Nov 25, 2012 3:34:24 GMT -5
It sounds like the footsteps are highly map dependent. Some metal grating areas are noisy, but other areas seem totally quiet.
For reference, I came away with the "Awareness is a broken perk and I'm not going to waste a slot trying to soundwhore" conclusion after playing with bots on Plaza.
A possible idea:
Where can we bros hear footsteps the best? What areas can be locked down based on their proximity to noisy-ass surfaces? Maybe by creating a list we can give ourselves a slight edge and a way to make awareness work.
For you guys that do like the sound mix in Black Ops II (I'm looking at you, Witty and Mousey), what areas seem most copacetic for it?
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Post by pharq on Nov 25, 2012 10:13:32 GMT -5
i agree, footsteps are highly dependent on surface, like metal and dirt, so they aren't the best source of soundwhoring.
however, audio cue's such as character speech, reloading, and other sources of movement combined with player awareness and you can easily pick up where footsteps leave you dry.
but overall i think the footsteps could use some fine tuning.
note on a map like drone you can easily hear when people enter the facility via the star trek door slides.
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wwaa
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Post by wwaa on Nov 25, 2012 14:54:31 GMT -5
Players with Flack Jacket make more noise regardless the surface am I right?
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Tyzerra
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Stay sharp.
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Post by Tyzerra on Nov 25, 2012 16:20:22 GMT -5
Players with Flack Jacket make more noise regardless the surface am I right? They better not do. That's ridiculous if someone receives a penalty like that just for using a run-of-the-mill perk.
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Post by blackbarney on Nov 26, 2012 11:59:23 GMT -5
great thread! I was wondering about this myself. I couldn't decide which sound mix was best and have been switching back and forth between Treyarch and Headphones everytime I can't hear someone right beside me for no reason at all. I will try Crunchy, thanks.
Is the colour-blind assist thing for realsies? Or is it like a placebo? When i wear my B02 tags, I play better!
I figured out the music problem myself as well. After my first match, I turned it down to ONE.I don't miss it.
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Post by illram on Nov 26, 2012 13:34:48 GMT -5
I briefly tried awareness in League play and it was nowhere near as useful as SRP in MW2/3. It's much more situational, i.e., only parts of the map have footfall sounds that you can really hear above the racket. In MW2/3 it was useful all the time no matter your playstyle because you could hear people from so far away regardless of where they were walking.
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Post by spyder on Nov 26, 2012 21:36:38 GMT -5
I don't know if i'm doing something wrong or what. I could hear people moving in CoD4 or MW2 with $5 earbuds, exponentially better than I can with mixamp + AD700s in any of the last 3 CoD games. Can't comment on WaW as I never played it.
Maybe I should try turtle beach again? Haven't used any of their stuff in 4 years because once I tried Audio Technica, I was all done with the "gaming" branded products. I thought they were all mediocre quality drivers in an overpriced flashy package marketed to teenagers...but maybe i should give them another shot?
Even with awareness + dead silence I constantly have guys running up on me around corners. Why is the sound of a guy reloading louder than someone sprinting full speed across sheet metal?
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Post by notanon on Nov 28, 2012 1:48:34 GMT -5
Page 2 bump because why not.
So I tried using supercrunch with my turtle beaches and HOLY SWEET JESUS does it make a difference. Went into League Play to use Awareness/Dead Silence (don't have awareness) and I can say that with your headset cranked up to very loud volumes, it is very similar to MW3's SitRep. There are a few differences, though:
1- Everything else is MUCH, MUCH louder. Not scary loud, but you won't be hearing footsteps while explosions are happening anywhere on the map. 2- Teammates footsteps are louder than in MW3 with SitRep. I'm pretty sure Awareness makes no attempt to reduce teammate footstep noise, which is unfortunate.
Interestingly enough, with dead silence your own footsteps sound just as loud as your footsteps with SitRep in MW3. However, the volume is still cranked, so we can say that the ratio of how audible your footsteps are in comparison to enemies is the same (Awareness+Dead Silence=Sitrep Pro) in that regard. When there are long stretches of silence, the two sound perks seem to provide more range for footsteps as well compared to SitRep, which is also very nice. Think of Awareness+Dead Silence as SitRep that turns off when there is any background noise at all. When I finally unlock awareness again, I'll see how listening to players with dead silence is different.
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Post by bloopdebloop on Nov 28, 2012 12:36:12 GMT -5
supercrunch will only help if you plan on making yourself deaf before the age of 50.
i've found the high boost settings to help the most, the more treble the better.
also tac mask>dead silence.
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wittyscorpion
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All warfare is based on deception.
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Post by wittyscorpion on Dec 11, 2012 3:56:29 GMT -5
Just finished prestige 2 run and in this prestige I played with Dead Silence and Awareness for extended period of time after I reached level 50. Below are my 2 cents based on my personal experiences:
---- More in-depth observations regarding the sound whore perks
1) IMHO the most horrible aspect of Awareness is not its "UP"-ness for detecting footsteps (which is definitely an issue and will be discussed in #2 below), but the fact that it does not differentiate footsteps of enemies from the ones of the player and his teammates. This makes it pretty hard to be effective for situations when a) the player himself needs to move a lot, and b) the player is surrounded by his teammates.
To overcome the problem a mentioned above, the player has a few options: i) use Dead Silence, ii) move slowly (e.g.: crouch walking, ADS walking, etc)), and iii) camp hard.
To overcome the problem b mentioned above: either stay away from teammates or closely monitor radar. This does make it quite impractical for game modes in which the teammates tend to cluster.
2) Awareness' footstep detection. With Awareness I can easily detect sprinting enemies near me, and can pinpoint the directions they are coming from pretty easily. However, normal walking is pretty difficult (or even impossible) to detect, not to mention crouch walk and ADS walk. The good thing is that in BO2 most players tend to move aggressively when enemy team have UAV up, which makes sprinting a common practice.
---- Play styles, and related weapons and attachments:
1) Overwatch
This is the classic play style of taking a good sniping perch that has great field of view, and rely on weapon's sight advantage to own the encounters within the FOV.
Perks: in this case the player does not need to move much after he is in position, so Dead Silence is not a necessity. Just Awareness alone can work out.
Weapon choices:
Sniper Rifle, with default sight or Variable Zoom or Dual Band LMG with default sight or Dual Band or Target Finder
BO2's strong pistols make sound whoring practical for this play style. These secondaries can take on almost any primaries for CQC battle, especially when you have the advanced knowledge of where the enemies are coming from.
2) Area patrol
This is the play style of which the player always strive to cover the team's flanks, i.e. the directions the enemy are most likely to flank from.
Perks: Awareness + Dead Silence are most ideal. If you feel comfortable with ADS walking most of the time (with Stock attachment), DS can be skipped.
Weapon choices: 1) AR with Suppressor + Stock (for ADS walk) 2) SMG (I also prefer Suppressor and/or Stock)
3) Wreak havoc near enemy's spawn
In this style, the player first tries to get himself deep into enemy's spawn area, and then rely on sound whoring for killing. Players, even the most cautious, tend to move aggressively right after respawn, making sound whoring against them more effective.
Perks: since the player needs to move a lot, DS is almost a necessity.
Weapons: SMG / Shotty are probably the best choices, + strong backup weapons. Either the primary or the secondary need to be silenced for stealth needs, because you are always outnumbered.
Domination, especially after your team have 2 flags controlled, might be the best game mode for this style.
TI is needed to make this style sustainable.
Just my 2 cents.
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wittyscorpion
True Brorange
All warfare is based on deception.
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Post by wittyscorpion on Dec 11, 2012 4:26:28 GMT -5
On the flip side, if you suspect that you are being victimized by sound whoring, below are ideas to counter it:
1) Use Dead Silence 2) ADS walk with Stock. Based on Stock thread, doing so will not reveal you on enemy UAV scan when you have Ghost perk on. 3) Crouch walk when you are trying to sneak up to an overwatcher. As an added bonus, crouch also prevent you from being ambushed by Betty. However, keep in mind UAV can instantly spoil your stealth so plan accordingly.
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Dec 11, 2012 7:52:31 GMT -5
^If you think you're getting victimized by sound whoring in this game my idea to counter it is to seek immediate psychiatric help, because clearly you are beyond paranoid.
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Post by cashmoves on Dec 11, 2012 10:21:59 GMT -5
ive been involved in more than a few kill cams where i was watching an area with my xbr and rapidly swiveled behind me to crush some idiot running around with a knife with my my dual kaps. its obvious when youve been soundwhored, it just happens rarely.
ive got to the point where i cant even play with my custom sniper classes in search. i havent unlocked awareness yet, and i play with the default sniper/awareness class. i swore to myself i would not prestige in this game because the best unlocks (primary, secondary, perks, equipment) all come so damn late. i will agree though, that awareness is nowhere near as good as in prior games, but its still good enough to safe your life more often than not. when you only have one life per round, life preservation is paramount, and perks like awareness/sitrep/dead silence will ALWAYS be most important (assuming you dont just rush spawn with a smg or shotty).
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Brick2urface
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Post by Brick2urface on Dec 11, 2012 11:23:36 GMT -5
You make almost no noise (if any at all) while moving when ads. So if you are taking an smg or shotgun you won't need dead silence because they have fast movement while ads.
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wittyscorpion
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All warfare is based on deception.
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Post by wittyscorpion on Dec 11, 2012 11:44:05 GMT -5
^If you think you're getting victimized by sound whoring in this game my idea to counter it is to seek immediate psychiatric help, because clearly you are beyond paranoid. They happen rarely due to the high unlock and UP-ness of Awareness, but when they do they are "WTF?!" moments. I have been using the following "Area Patrol" setup in TDM games: SCAR-H w/Suppressor + Stock Ghost Toughness Awareness + DS Stun x 2 and it can be quite effective. For example: on Turbine I can effectively control the 1) #1 and #4 building overlooking the bridge and C-Dom; 2) A-Dom covering the hammer path and #2 building, and get streak of kills when multiple enemies passing through. They are often surprised by how I would know they are coming at that exact moment.
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Dec 11, 2012 14:05:04 GMT -5
I have noticed Turbine is one of the rare maps where you can actually hear stuff. Though people rightly vote against it any time it comes up. Seems to pop up in League TDM waaaay too much.
I've found Dead Silence + Awareness to be a really bad combo though. Unfortunately your footsteps still aren't completely silent to yourself with DS. At times I've had better luck hearing quiet enemy footsteps with normal self-footstep volume because it was easier to differentiate. The slight DS pitter-patter you get is almost more distracting somehow.
I don't really do SnD... got tossed into one game I think through Mercenary Moshpit, went 8-0, it's tempting to just retire undefeated. But anyway, in general SnD playstyles won't do much for me. I don't want to crouch walk and camp tight corners, and let's face it, that's the only situation where sound is going to be vaguely useful here.
All I want is to be able to play aggressively and be able to hear other people playing aggressively, but the game just isn't willing to provide it. Sitrep Pro was such a bargain.. made your idiot teammates quiet, made you quiet to yourself, gave you Engineer vision, made enemies loud enough to hear. I'm just going to have to resign myself to taking stupid deaths when I run into a T-intersection, hear nothing, look left, get shot in the back from 2 feet away from a dude that sprinted into the intersection 0.5 seconds later with Lightweight and Extreme Conditioning somehow without making any noise before I can turn and check the other direction.
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wittyscorpion
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All warfare is based on deception.
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Post by wittyscorpion on Dec 11, 2012 14:43:34 GMT -5
I have noticed Turbine is one of the rare maps where you can actually hear stuff. Though people rightly vote against it any time it comes up. Seems to pop up in League TDM waaaay too much. I've found Dead Silence + Awareness to be a really bad combo though. Unfortunately your footsteps still aren't completely silent to yourself with DS. At times I've had better luck hearing quiet enemy footsteps with normal self-footstep volume because it was easier to differentiate. The slight DS pitter-patter you get is almost more distracting somehow. I don't really do SnD... got tossed into one game I think through Mercenary Moshpit, went 8-0, it's tempting to just retire undefeated. But anyway, in general SnD playstyles won't do much for me. I don't want to crouch walk and camp tight corners, and let's face it, that's the only situation where sound is going to be vaguely useful here. All I want is to be able to play aggressively and be able to hear other people playing aggressively, but the game just isn't willing to provide it. Sitrep Pro was such a bargain.. made your idiot teammates quiet, made you quiet to yourself, gave you Engineer vision, made enemies loud enough to hear. I'm just going to have to resign myself to taking stupid deaths when I run into a T-intersection, hear nothing, look left, get shot in the back from 2 feet away from a dude that sprinted into the intersection 0.5 seconds later with Lightweight and Extreme Conditioning somehow without making any noise before I can turn and check the other direction. True on all points. Sound whoring on BO2 requires serious commitment, you'll have to completely adapt your play style to the perks. Not worth it for players who like to run aggressively, but viable for players who don't mind camp ing / overwatching / patrolling once in a while. Map wise it is not that bad, as long as you can position yourself in areas where the enemies feel relatively bold and like to sprint through. Areas around A-Dom and C-Dom usually fit this requirement pretty well. Game mode plays a very important role. I mainly play Dom (when partying) and TDM (when going solo), and TDM works much much better. I imagine KC can work very well too, because players usually put on speed perks and running around like maniac for gold tags.
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Post by blackbarney on Dec 11, 2012 17:59:37 GMT -5
I would love to know if someone who shelled out the 279$ or 299$ for the Turtle Beach Sierra or Tango headsets with the customized pre-set mixes specific for Black Ops II could say if they make a difference or no (I would imagine they'd be biased from having shelled out 300 bucks for them anyway). But I'm curious if those Black Ops II preset customized mixes are any good
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Post by -3055- on Dec 11, 2012 20:00:01 GMT -5
Turtle beaches have PX5, and you can create your own presets for the headset. Change the different sounds and volumes and tones to make it ideal for you.
This is what I have, and you can also download people's uploaded presets. Someone put up a MW3 footstep preset that amplifies the ranges of sounds are strongly tied with footsteps.
depending on the material, with sitrep pro, i could hear them from across the map. It's not unusual for me to go running around the map with sitrep pro and dead silence pro with a suppressed smg and go flawless in S&D or FFA
There isn't a BO2 footstep preset available yet, so i'm still using MW3's footstep preset. When someone bothers to make one for it, i'll let everyone know how it is. If it's any similar to how it is now, don't expect good results.
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battleaxerx
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Post by battleaxerx on Dec 16, 2012 19:32:34 GMT -5
Fuck, the sound in this game is near perfect. I have no complaints. I soundwhore like crazy with awareness and kids want it to be better because they themselves have no awareness skills.
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Post by Pegasus Actual on Dec 16, 2012 22:01:05 GMT -5
Maybe I just have shitty hearing?
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