Compared to VT2, the sound cues for the specials and even elites are a lot less recognizable and unique. The only one I could consistently pick out was the Hound and maybe the Bomb guys. The rest (especially Trapper, arguably the most dangerous) just seem to be a lot less obviously telegraphed.
I like that in VT2, when you upped the difficulty to Legend or Cata, the fight becomes more and more hectic but it is manageable if you know what’s on the battlefield, which you do, because the sound cues are idiosyncratic and instantly recognizable (the only two I had trouble with starting out was separating Leech from Blightstormer).
Here, it just seems chaotic because I don’t know what’s going on.
Plus, the tagging system was superbly botchy. The VT2 tagging system was spanky and instantly responsive. Here it seemed to work half the time.
I hope Specials get improved upon in the final release. I like difficulty but untelegraphed specials are the worst kind of difficulty - artificial and unfair.
I found turning off the music to be the only reliable way to notice the sound cues of units like the Pox Flamer and Trapper. Once I did that, I had zero problems. Which is probably not how it should be since they spent a lot of time on the music.
I feel like I’m the only one who never struggled on hearing the sound cues, even with music. The only issue I had was trapper and flamer sound similar, but I always ended up searching around and getting readyy to dodge anyways, I was almost never caught by a trapper unless I got to tunnel visioned
The speech based approach cues of the bomber, tox flamer and trappers seem to be affected by environmental effects much more than the non-verbal approach cues of the mutant, hound or poxburster. Contrast that with verbal cues in V2, from the gutter runner, lifeleech and blightstormer, where the lines are blasted out over everything. Another issue is how the trapper and bomber sprint away after an attack and unless nothing else is happening, you can’t hear where they have gone.
I’m sure that over time we’ll get used to it, but they really need to have the verbal cues turned up because currently they do get swamped really easily especially when a horde or even a squad of riflemen or carapace melee guys is around.