Hello! I’m a mk. II Relic Blade user and I’d like to register a bit of feedback about the sound changes to the powered-on hit effects that came with the most recent patch. I’ve given them a whirl and put them through their paces, but I’d like to say that I feel the sound changes are a bit of a downgrade from how they used to be. I’ll explain why, in case it’s helpful.
Prior to this patch, the big energetic sound of the old powered-on state was very distinct from the powered-off state. Powered-off would go shlorp shlorp, kind of a wet bouba sound, and by contrast the powered-on state would go DNNSH, DNNSH, DNNSH; it was much more kiki. The two sounds being very distinct was helpful, as there are cases where the sword can be powered off when I don’t want it to be (i.e. being barrel blasted or being thrown by a Mutant or a Chaos Spawn), and sometimes when this happens the audio cue of my sword going shlorp shlorp reminds me that it’s off, and that I should turn it on again. The heat gauge is right next to my crosshair (and I use it to line up vertical heavy weakspot hits, it’s offset perfectly for this!), but there’s a lot going on and having a different audio cue helped a lot with keeping track of my sword’s power state when I’m being thrown around by all manner of monsters.
In the most recent patch, this distinction between sound effects was evened out, and it’s become a bit harder to tell a powered-on hit effect from a powered-off hit effect. According to the patch notes the old sound effect was a generic hit sound? It sounded perfect, it sounded strong and energized, and the new one lacks these qualities, or they are not so pronounced as they were. It used to sound like hot energy was searing through tough matter, now it goes shlorp shlorp with a subtle energy layer on top of it.
I don’t expect that the sword’s powered-on effect would be returned to its old state, but the new effect doesn’t sound as distinct and loses a lot of the punch the old effect had, in addition to being a bit less helpful as an audio cue in the heat of battle.
Thanks for your time, and thanks for your hard work on an excellent game.