Genuinely thought this would be fixed soon after the sound rework was merged but it wasn’t:
SOCOM rounds are deafeningly loud to the victim and those close around it. Is it cool for the XM88 user and high dopamine? Sure. But it is sound pollution and drowns out any other sounds and ruins the immersion for anyone closer than 3 tiles.
Hitsound either needs heavily reduced or reworked to originate from the gun user rather than the victim.
It’s part of the experience man. Half of the reason the XM is so good is because it doesn’t stun the xeno, it stuns the person playing the xeno using sheer volume power.
Well, XM88 is relatively rare, and I think it needs the sound signalling. If the sound blent in w. the rest of the combat environment, it’d be a huge buff to it tbh. Think about what repeat hits means w. the XM88. Xenos that aren’t trained as well will fall victim to Bullseye way more often cuz they might not notice XM88 in play.
As an XM88 gamer, I’ll concede to your point that yes I mainly use it for the dopamine ping. You ever see a firing line of 3-4 XM88s? Shit is absolutely kino.
But also as an XM88 gamer, I think my guess that making the sound quieter would be a buff to it, is correct - so yeah why not. I’ll PR this.
How rare is it? How many cases of xm88 do req have? I feel every pfc uses it more than anything else in rounds. Weapons i see “rare” in rounds now is heavy revolver and maby just one mou user every round. Turn around a corner as xeno these days and you read a entire page of socom hits and amr hits.
The XM88 is a armor piercer, so it should sound meaty to the intended armor piercing targets.
If there was a way to code it so that the XM88 is quiet to anyone with no armor, and gets progressively louder the more armor you have, id be up for it. It makes no sense that the XM88’s rounds sound super meaty to xenos that have no or little armor.
This is not a lore or flavor discussion. This is the design of sound which is extremely important. Socom rounds are already unique enough, and can be louder(compared to default hitsound). The problem is the original rework designed the sound around being audible to the gun user while originating on the victim. A horrible combination which never should have made it past quality control.