Ambient sounds, or real?

[LauScript]

So during a controversial argument on steam about sounds and the effect on players and immersion, i'd like to ask you all on facepunch.

So to clarify, i am going to be talking specifically about ambient shooting sounds in maps, in this case a S.T.A.L.K.E.R environment.

So, i was saying it'd be better than instead of having fake, occasional, ambient shooting sounds. Remove those completely and have good distant sounds for shooting when it actually is happening. When you hear a firefight going on in the distance, and you know it's fake, is it more imersive? or is it more imersive to know when you hear a firefight, it really effects you. When you hear it, you should either avoid it, or be interested enough to investigate?

so what's better, fake? real? fake with real?

My opinion on the matter was that you need fake and real. Real for things that directly effect the player, shooting, explosions, creatures, anomolies, things like that. And fake for things that don't effect the player, birds, wind, foliage blowing in the wind, things like that.

[Steff]

I agree. I always found games with ambient shooting a bit annoying ("stuff is going on and I CANT JOIN IT?! >:( " ). Maybe unless its in a battlefield environment where it would be weird with little to no ambient shooting. Like Day of Defeat maps. They felt a bit more alive with the sounds even if you were only 5-6 guys on the entire map.

[LauScript]

Yeah definitely. Hearing fake things is like teasing you, and reminds you of what it [b]could[/b] be like. very counter-immersive.

[Tufty 🌹]

Left 4 Dead had ambient gunfire, I believe, but that worked because you'd only hear it if you were paying attention to the background (which, really, you shouldn't be), as well as having a story-telling element to it; it reminded you that you weren't alone in the game, and perhaps added a bit more depth.

[Sharker]

I guess it kind of depends. In most cases I prefer real. I guess fake could work in games like Call of Duty where you're having a small battle in the middle of a larger warzone. But yeah, real is definitely better, I think the first time I heard player made ambient sound was in Delta Force: BHD and it blew me the fuck away. It's really awesome to hear a huge gun battle in the distance and know that there are actual players causing all that noise.

[Araknid]

BFBC2 had fake ambient sounds iirc, and I think it worked really well because it felt like there was more going on than just a small battle in a little desert town

[J.C.DentonUNATCO]

I think theres a nice sweet spot. In a game like STALKER, there shouldn't be any ambient gunfire because of how semi-realistic the game takes itself and how much of a threat enemies pose. It can really mislead the player. Theres also the added fact that scavenging is really important, and if you follow gunfire and all it leads you to is a corner of the map with a bunch of wolves and no people with supplies it can really fuck you over. Plus theres enough randomly spawned enemies an mutants in STALKER to make their own commotion.

While in Half-Life 2, when you are escaping City 17, you can hear almost constant gunfire and numerous explosions. It really sets the feel that the rebellion is in full swing and you have enough combine, zombies, and antlions to worry about yourself along with your goal of getting the hell out so that you don't really need to stop and think "I need to investigate this commotion." HL2 is also linear, while STALKER is semi-open world.

Some multiplayer games also benefit from it, but same with STALKER it can be detrimental. You aren't sure if the gunfire or explosions are from a player or if the devs put it in to make the world seem a bit bigger than it is.