New Sensory upgrade: Improved Hearing Sense

borsuk

Hi

I think it could be interesting if one of alien upgrades was Improved Hearing Sense. In addition to potentially increasing hearing range of an alien, it would allow player to <b>hear some otherwise absent sounds</b>. Some sounds could be restricted to this upgrade. Specific ideas:

- certain weapon types could be heard from afar. For example an alien could hear the pilot light of a flamethrower and warn teammates.
- certain technology upgrades enabled by humans could produce unique sounds. In Red Alert 2, if Soviets produce a heavy bomber, all other players hear "Kirov reporting". And Kirovs are very heavy bombers in that game. In case of NS2, an alien could hear jetpacks or heavy armour research complete.
- for extra tactical value, improved hearing could enable alien to hear malfunctioning (Health < 25%) heavy armour, or malfunctioning jetpacks, which would encourage to pursue the human before he flies, finish him off and deprive of expensive equipment.

pSyk0mAn

Not that bad an idea, but with a few issues imho.

First of all in ns2 the alien commander is rather supposed to do scouting and I think it's also supposed to gather these kind of informations.

Second you could also deliver these information visually, which means just a new old advanced hivesight upgrade or an improved scent of fear.

I think, if a few alien commander abilities are somehow tied to the available chambers, then these kind of suggestions would work for the sensory chamber commander abilities.

innociv

I quite like this, both posters ideas.

Maybe showing highlighted footsteps on the ground for the commander to simulate the sounds of footsteps? So the commander could see where people, and see where they were going, outside of line-of-sight?

For the increased hearing range for the other aliens:
The problem with increasing the range you can hear gunfire is that's a lot more load on the server. They limit sound ranges so the data sent saying that a weapon was fired has to be sent to few people. Sort of like "bubble instancing". That said, I still think it'd be neat. But without surround sound and people that can tell where their surround sound sounds are coming from, hearing weapon fires 2 rooms away isn't that useful. If you do have surround sound, then sure it is. But at least louder and further footsteps, that'd be in the next room instead of right on top of you, so even without surround sound you know someone is close.

Speaking of, I hope footsteps on thin metal(think lots of scifi movies where they're walking on an inch thick metal grate and some creature can see them underneath.) is a lot louder than and can be heard further away than something sturdy and thick.

It's sad that footstep sounds don't matter in most recent games, when they used to be a big deal pre-millennium.

BadMouth

I am not entirely for this idea. I like the functions it performs but I am not sold on the method. Having to hear all upgrades and such would seem unintuitive for me and I have no idea how this will transmit the information to the user without either being confusing or breaking the immersion of hearing.

If the user has to memorise all the different sounds in other to use the ability, it is unintuitive. It the user actually has a visual cue to tell him that he his hearing a certain aspect, what would be the point of hearing then?

blitz_krieg001

Another idea is that if you get improved hearing sense you can actually understand what the marines are saying. So, if you were close enough to some marines you would hear their voice comms (both mic comms, and game sqawks etc.). It'd probably be a very cool for people who like to play scout/spy type roles. Perhaps their could also be a piece of equipment or building upgrade for marines that allowed them to listen to hive-mind within a certain radius?

Jimyd

Not to derail this thread completely, but if you have some good(keyword here) gaming headphones, you can hear sounds much better. Especially faint sounds in the distance, like quite footsteps.

It's a big imbalancing thing in Counter-Strike, if you use a 5.1 Speaker Surround Sound setup like me.

Serious business requires headphones, but I don't care when I am pubbing.

ryknow69

Hmm, sorry for derail too but, where can you get these OP earphones, I've been searching for some good ones, and all I find are crappy imitators.

Is it A:Comfortable, B:has a Mic, and C:Under $100?





now on topic,

I like the Footstep thing for the Alien Commander, you get to HEAR them, and some time, 30 seconds maybe, you start to SEE them, as the hivemind, you can interpret the sound based on how heavy the steps are, and how fast they are and blah blah to determine what the marine is carrying and wearing, maybe not down to the Gun, but atleast armor of JP or HA.

locallyunscene

Back on topic, I like the idea, but it sounds more like a comm upgrade or passive chamber(in range of chamber like adren from mvt chamber) than a non comm upgrade.

xmaine

why would you need to hear if you can see through walls?

IluvBread

<!--quoteo(post=1737526:date=Nov 14 2009, 10:29 AM:name=xmaine)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (xmaine @ Nov 14 2009, 10:29 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1737526"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->why would you need to hear if you can see through walls?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

This.