One more field observation after putting more hours into War Tapes V.A.L.:
V.A.L. absolutely delivers on raw aggression and grit—no argument there. But even under V.A.L., the core issue persists: every sound other than my own gunfire—other players' weapons, explosions, distant firefights—sits too low in the mix. V.A.L. makes everything more aggressive, but it doesn't raise the floor for non-threat / third-party sources relative to self-fire. The imbalance remains: my rifle goes crack, but the guy 40m to my left might as well be firing a pellet gun, and a 150m explosion lacks the LF weight it should carry.
To be precise about what I'm asking: this isn't "turn everything up." It's about raising the mix baseline for non-self, non-threat sounds—so that:
Third-party weapon fire at close/mid/long range has audible weight (the three-layer close-mid-far third-person audio should be distinctly louder than current)
Explosions retain LF body and a tail even at distance, instead of collapsing into a dull thud
A firefight on a ridgeline gives you a directional and distance read, not just "something is happening over there"
The community has flagged this exact point—that V.A.L. changes timbre/character but cannot fix the near-mid-far third-person volume tiers. So this is not a V.A.L.-specific complaint; it's a global mix baseline issue that V.A.L. merely exposes more clearly because it removes other masking.
My suggestion: revisit the gain staging for non-threat sources specifically, independent of which audio mix mode is selected. Whether a player runs Default, High Dynamics, or War Tapes V.A.L., the relative gap between self-fire and third-party fire should be smaller than it currently is.
Happy to keep testing as changes roll out.
