ESO tutorial (or game description) audio plays in background whenever Steam in-game overlay is on

vsrs_au

Today, I started ESO in the morning, and the audio was fine, then I played later on, and some tutorial audio, giving a detailed description of the game's features, is playing in the background, and I can't find any way to stop it!

Another related problem is that the startup music was badly distorted, and I could hear non-music sounds in the background, that sounded a lot like a dark anchor being created. I'm guessing it may have been the intro to the tutorial audio. This other sound overlaps with the startup music, and the result is awful and distorted.

I have accessibility mode turned off, and gameplay | tutorials turned off also, I don't know what other setting affects this. When I turn the master volume to 0 in settings | audio, or turn settings | audio | music to off, this damn tutorial keeps playing. How the heck do I get rid of it? It's driving me crazy.

Forgot to mention: this audio description plays at the character login screen, I don't even need to be logged in to a character to hear it, so settings | gameplay | tutorial won't fix it, because that setting doesn't exist at the character login screen.

@ZOS_GinaBruno & @ZOS_Kevin , please tell me there's a setting to turn this off. ---> never mind, it's something weird going on with the Steam in-game overlay, I commented on it in additional posts below.

I just spent an hour trying to turn this background audio off, and got nowhere. So to do some of my usual daily tasks, I had to turn my PC's speakers off. I even rebooted my PC twice, that also changed nothing.

vsrs_au

Also raised problem in ticket #30706-000255.

vsrs_au

I just recorded the start of the game, up to the point where the game description narration starts, using the Xbox Game Bar software that comes with Windows 10, and found to my surprise that the audio in the recorded video is normal, with only the game's intro sound playing, and not the game description audio. So somehow this game description plays on a separate channel to the game itself, or at least the Xbox Game Bar doesn't seem to record it.

vsrs_au

Well, I'll be...

I just turned off the Steam in-game overlay, and the unwanted game description audio went away!
There's something in Steam that was causing this extra audio to play whenever I had the Steam in-game overlay enabled.

I can't find anything in Steam's In Game settings that would explain where this audio game description comes from, though. Any ideas, people?

vsrs_au

I identified the audio that was playing whenever I enabled the Steam in-game overlay, it's actually the High Isle trailer that's in the Steam window whenever you display the overlay from in-game, e.g. when you use the Crown Store to buy crowns, and not some audio of a dark anchor as I originally thought.
I disabled the in-game overlay, and now when I use the Crown Store to open the interface to buy crowns, instead of several independent overlay windows, it shows the main Steam window, and this video starts playing. I can't explain the game description audio, though: all I know is that when the overlay is on, this description starts playing a few minutes after the game starts, even if I'm not logged in to a character.

In other words, there's something really weird going on with the Steam in-game overlay. This also explains why the Xbox Game Bar didn't record the audio for this Steam trailer, because it's not actually part of the game.

Hopefully, my thread will help others having a similar problem with the in-game overlay.

vsrs_au

[FOUND SOLUTION]

I think I finally worked it out: it's poor design of the Steam in-game overlay. This overlay consists of several small windows, and one larger window which is used for purchases, e.g. when I use the in-game Crown Store to buy crowns. This window may have several tabs in it, and at least one of these tabs will have a page with Elder Scrolls Online related ads, with pictures and/or videos related to various ESO chapters. One of these videos gives a detailed description of all the game's features, which is what I was hearing earlier, and another video was the High Isle trailer, and so on.

If the active tab in the overlay happens to start playing a video, I can hear this video even when the in-game overlay is not currently displayed, hence my comment on poor design!

And hey, it only took me about 3 hours to work this out: a very frustrating afternoon (it's about 1615 here). But at least I know how to manage that annoying overlay a bit better in future.

SeaGtGruff

Thank you for posting this. I don't remember if I use the Steam overlay, but if anyone who uses Steam runs into this issue, we now know how to fix it thanks to your diligence!

Necrotech_Master

i dont pull up the steam overlay much in games i do run through steam (eso is not one of them unless im running it as non-steam game on my laptop lol), but i do know that steam did make some massive UI changes to both their client and the game overlay that definitely take a bit to get used to lol