New Sensory upgrade: Improved Hearing Sense
borsuk
Join Date: 2009-06-06 Member: 67717Members
Join Date: 2009-06-06 Member: 67717Members
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.
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.
Comments
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
This.