I don’t mind the vocabulary. I mean, being a VH is a tough business…
They are noisy though. I’ll try the “night time” audio setting and see if that help.
By the same token this game also revels in poop jokes, so without going overboard on what should or should not be done, I wouldn’t miss the dying puppy sounds if they just disappeared at some point. 
I agree too, it was fine in the previous titles, but now they really sound like dogs, not monsters anymore.
The game miss a lot of sound option, another one of them is your own character noises when in pain, their are way louder than any other dialog in the game and it just sound like I’m watching some weird pron or something while I’m just playing and my character is burning/electrified.
1 Like
Seemed like you was making a somewhat reasonable point based on your wife being overly sympathetic to animals but then you went all Alex Jones with the suggestion that Gearbox is beating animals to capture their dying cries.
I love animals; I volunteer at my local shelter for various things but this is either a decently structured troll post or another example of taking the PC culture to ridiculous extremes.
I find it unlikely that Gearbox has a hidden cache of puppies that they beat to capture sound files.
Edit to add: Sounds can be created digitally too. Especially if you already have a large library to sample from.
2 Likes
They are real. It was Ash Lyons’s dog (one of Gearbox’s VFX artists) and he said on Twitter the dog loved all the attention it got performing in the recording booth. They even put the dog in the end credits with the rest of the voice cast.
While I’m not as obsessive about dogs as some people are these days, I do agree that the sounds gave me a jolt when I first heard them. It doesn’t bother me enough to think too much of it, but I definitely prefer the snarling sounds of the skags in the other games.
They say humorous things when they die, which kind of takes the sting out of it. Shame about those chilli recipes.
Killing Atlas soldiers with elemental damage in Borderlands 1 legitimately gives me the willies though.
There are several enemies that have a death line along the lines of “oh no I crapped myself!” Definitely more annoying than funny.
Was able to confirm that this is the case. Thank you. So that takes the ‘worry’ out of the sounds for my wife and she can start playing again, since that was her main concern. Though she obviously still doesn’t like the sounds generally, she can endure through knowing where they came from. At least they’re only found on Pandora (as far as we can see anyway, haven’t been through the whole game yet).
Normally I wouldn’t even seriously consider this sort of thing. however, considering Gearbox’s controversial CEO, I can’t really initially disregard anything beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt these days. Besides, If I went Alex Jones on him, I’d have said he was a shadow member of Bilderberg with a plot to use video-game violence to remove the 2nd amendment and whose hobby it is to study two male frogs in the same terrarium after feeding them tap-water.
1 Like
I’d like to bring up that this is borderlands 3…as in there has been 2 more games before(3 counting pre sequel).
This is NOT the first time we attack skags…this has never been an issue before…why did they change the alienish sounds to actual dog yelps? It’s totally unnecessary.
Plus people saying we are against these but okay with human hurting sounds…it’s not the same first and foremost mostly because when human opponents die they usually say a funny quip. …
Yes, this is very distressing. I noted in B2 that pup skag body language was very well done, and I had some squeekyness about it. The whining/hurt noises are much, much worse.
I would pay money for a mod that made FL4K’s skag scoop one up by the scruff and carry it off to safety and have it lose aggro and dissapear.
As for human deaths; yes they are less problematic because 1-sentient (sorta) beings trying to kill me, 2-funny quips, and generally 3-over the top presentation making it clear that I’m not “just” a sadistic monstor killing everything (although, yes any given Vault Hunter’s sanity would be questionable).
It’s a negative quality of life thing. And yes, I would love a command to “turn off pitiful enemy skag sounds” that changed NOTHING ELSE.
Just as there is an Uncanny Valley with visuals, where something isn’t real, is made to look real, but ends up not quite making it and is disturbing(eg: creepy dolls), there is an uncanny valley with sound as well. It’s just easier hit hit that valley with sound as sound is much easier to make realistic/disturbing (via editing/mixing skills or just plain good acting) than graphics. Plus, the juxtaposition between the unrealistic graphics and a generally light-hearted attitude, like here in Borderlands, with suddenly realistic/disturbing sounds, makes things not mesh quite right.
The human sounds in this and plenty other games aren’t realistic at all, which is why they don’t bother most people, but sometimes, be it on purpose or accidental, they are realistic (like the Atlas elemental death screams in BL1 as previously mentioned or, as an old reference, the death screams of enemies in Crusader: No Remorse when lit on fire) and ends up being disturbing. Some games try to go for this sort of realism, like some realistic military shooters, or for the disturbing side of things, like some horror games, but in a game like Borderlands, all it does is lower/temper the fun to be had by partially removing us from the escapism the game normally offers and has no place there because of that.
1 Like
+1 for this it needs to get patched out asap, or at the very least give an option to turn this sht off. I’d rather have them make 0 sound than this…
It’s annoying for me, the people that live with me, and my dogs.
1 Like
This is rad. Everyone is ok with blood and guts spraying and realistic human death noises but dat wil ol skag sounds like a puppy poo. I really thought I’d heard it all but nope. Time to go kill some skaggs
3 Likes
How many times do we need to repeat this? The gore and human death noises do not bother most people in this game because they are not realistic in any way. The only people that the gore would potentially affect would be those with a very low tolerance for that sort of thing, like someone who gets light-headed when they cut their finger. Even then, there is an option to turn the gore off, which there is not for the sounds that are bothering us. The argument that ‘we are OK with gore but not with this comparably insignificant other thing’ only makes sense when the thing you are comparing it to is of equal measure. In a game like Resident Evil 7, where the gore is much more realistic, sounds of this nature are almost expected, due to the level of disturbing content found in the game in other respects and the reactions the the game is trying to get out of the players. Borderlands 3 is not generally a disturbing game (I believe it does not intend to be), therefore it is more attractive to people who do not want to play a disturbing game. It does have some momentary disturbing elements here and there that can irk some people, like the subject matter in some quests or jokes, but the sounds in question are repeatable and last for an extended period of time, making it more grating to those who do not wish to hear them. It wouldn’t be nearly as bad if these sounds were used in a single short instance, probably for emotional impact (say if, during the story, one of Fl4k pets was to be killed off permanently for some reason).
If anyone believes that the gore in this game is realistic, then they have clearly never been exposed to anything of the sort in the real world. Most of the time, people who have never seen those sorts of things do not care too much about them being found in games or movies, but those who have tend to not want to be exposed to them again. Some people don’t care regardless of what they have seen in the past. I worked in a hospital for 8 years, part of which was in the ER, so don’t claim that certain games have realistic gore until you’ve seen things like the result of an 100kph+ motorcycle accident where the rider came in on more than one stretcher. If you, for whatever reason want to be exposed to that sort of thing, there are plenty of places to go on the internet and deep web to visit to ruin your life. As I tried to explain in my previous post, the same goes for sound. There is a clear difference between an actor doing a death scream in a VA booth and someone screaming in real life. The problem is, with animals, it is much harder to tell the difference, so sounds like this tend to get to people more easily and illicit a larger response from people who are disturbed by them.
Even the argument of ‘would you feel the same for a wolf biting you in real life’ is a fallacy. Of course I would bludgeon the head of a wild wolf attacking me if it were to happen. However, that is a real world, life or death situation, it is not fun and you don’t go out into a forest wearing something from Lady Gaga’s special catalog to be attacked by an animal on purpose for amusement. Borderlands 3 is a game meant to be played for fun and these sounds do not enhance the fun, they either do nothing to add to the fun or detract from the fun, depending on what kind of person you are. If these kinds of sounds legitimately add to the fun for you, then you might want to think about seeking help.
Hell, I’m not even one of the people that was bothered by these new sounds, my wife was. I just understand her point of view and thought processes behind where she is coming from and am willing to support her in that. Why does it seem that merely understanding someone else’s viewpoint is a human trait that has since been lost to time?
5 Likes
Hi, just had to quote two lovely points that you made.
1-Over the top violence is meant to be “over the top” and not realistic and creepy.
2-Totally badass in spouse points!!
1 Like