Hearing loss from gun usage

[LeoIvanov]

So, this suggestion is simple, yet I'm surprised nobody has suggested this yet (Either that, or I'm really bad at researching).

 

There should be an ability to slowly lose hearing after constant and rapid firing without the protective gear like earmuffs or earphones. After all, we have traits like bad hearing and deafness, I'm all for being able to acquire them through not careful use of weaponry.

 

For example - an in game day of >30 shots from any weapon without protective gear will subtract a point from the overall hearing. Let's say the arbitrary number of hearing for each character is 20/20, maybe 20/30, I don't remember if keen hearing is also a trait, haven't learnt absolutely every trait yet. So, every day that you spend blasting away at zombie hordes will subtract the number down, making it 19/20. Unlike other traits, like strength and fitness, the change in hearing is permanent and will stick with your character until death, making you aware of stuff that happens around you.

 

To combat that, have every weapon receive a "warning" label in their tooltip, stating not to fire weapons without protective gear, and let those that ignore warnings learn it the hard way. (Same with those that eat uncooked or rotten food, same with those that operate generators indoors.)

 

Ear buds/ear muffs/earphones will be able to be "worn", or "equipped", so the overall hearing does not get impacted by your constant horde slaughter, but will make it difficult for your character to notice an enemy directly behind you.

 

Not only will this tone down the "zombie slaughter" behavior in the middle of the cities, this will also force people to plan ahead on how they are going to use their weapons. Let's be frank here - using a firearm to "clear" the area from zombies is as effective as using a dirty and sticky mop to clean the floor, so that "strategy" goes out of the door immediately. Other methods of using a weapon is quickly firing a shot to attract the horde from 1 spot to the other, but this one won't affect the hearing - the number of shots has to be over 30 for a single in-game day. 

 

Feel free to discuss or point out any inaccuracies in my suggestion, I'll gladly read through them.

 

EDIT: As others have pointed out, shooting weapons indoors in a closed space, without the proper protective gear should heavily damage your hearing, compared to when you do it outside, or in very huge buildings, like a Mall.

[lerk]

I agree with the most of this but from a pistol you cant (or very hard) lose hearing. I think it hurt just but assault rifles, rifles.. For them you need some war buds. Correct me if im wrong.

[Evilwuun]

Damage to the ears, and loss of hearing, is more commonly cumulative than instant. A gunshot rings out at around 140dB on the low end, and anything above 130dB is said to be able to cause permanent damage and tinnitus (moderate to severe ringing in the ears).

One reason this can be hard to simulate in a game is that hearing loss is not even across the board. When a loud sound damages your hearing, it tends to damage on a specific frequency and dB, meaning that you lose the ability to perceive and register sounds at that level, while retaining (some) of your normal hearing. Furthermore, the loss of hearing typically occurs slowly over time, so that you don't actually notice it until it's too late.

The short version, for the sake of gameplay, is: yes, discharging a firearm can, and often does, cause temporary hearing loss, and repeated exposure to noise of this magnitude can cause permanent hearing problems over time.

For the sake of realism, I'm all for loss of hearing if care is not taken when using firearms. As far as gameplay goes, it could be hard to accurately simulate. I'd be satisfied with a system that causes an audible ringing to drown out most, if not all, in game sounds for a short time after discharging a firearm with no protection.

Offtopic

A few years ago I spent Christmas with my aunt and uncle in New Hampshire. Around midday, after a festive Christmas morning, my uncle decided to show off his newest firearm: a legitimate elephant rifle. Holy moldy oatmeal, Batman...I could hardly hear our game of Cards Against Humanity that evening.

[Mike280]

Ok, shooting a gun in an enclosed space without hearing protection (i.e. indoors), is EXTREMELY damaging to your ears.  The sound is amplified off the walls, and in a small enough space, like a bathroom or small bedroom, shooting a shotgun could blow out your eardrums.  I agree, with hearing loss.  Shooting a gun indoors, except something like the mall or a warehouse, should come with a loss of hearing (I think a cool sound effect would be the ringing in your ears, plus a "disoriented" moodle.  That moodle could lower your awareness, make reaction time slower, etc. 

 

Side note:  I went duck hunting last year, and saw a few other of the grizzled hunters not using hearing protection, so I figured "We're outside, it should be fine".  The first shot of my 12 gauge didn't deafen me, but it caused a slight ringing in my ears for about 5 minutes.  After another 2-3 dozen shots, the sound wasn't bothering me as much, I think my ears got used to it, if that makes any sense.  I've never shot a gun indoors, for the reasons above.  There's a reason why indoor gun ranges require you to use hearing protection.  It's not some silly rule or them being over authoritative.   

[Mike280]

The game already has a system in place to know if you're indoors or outside.  I think tinnitus could be easily simulated when shooting a gun inside.  I think most people use guns outside to clear an area, but anyone dumb enough to shoot a gun inside without hearing protection should be harshly penalized for their foolishness.

[Evilwuun]

Ok, shooting a gun in an enclosed space without hearing protection (i.e. indoors), is EXTREMELY damaging to your ears.  The sound is amplified off the walls, and in a small enough space, like a bathroom or small bedroom, shooting a shotgun could blow out your eardrums.  I agree, with hearing loss.  Shooting a gun indoors, except something like the mall or a warehouse, should come with a loss of hearing (I think a cool sound effect would be the ringing in your ears, plus a "disoriented" moodle.  That moodle could lower your awareness, make reaction time slower, etc. 

 

Side note:  I went duck hunting last year, and saw a few other of the grizzled hunters not using hearing protection, so I figured "We're outside, it should be fine".  The first shot of my 12 gauge didn't deafen me, but it caused a slight ringing in my ears for about 5 minutes.  After another 2-3 dozen shots, the sound wasn't bothering me as much, I think my ears got used to it, if that makes any sense.  I've never shot a gun indoors, for the reasons above.  There's a reason why indoor gun ranges require you to use hearing protection.  It's not some silly rule or them being over authoritative.   

 

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as I understand it, ears don't get used to strain the same way muscle systems do; your ears didn't get "used" to the sound, they became damaged to the point that those specific frequencies and dB levels were no longer perceived correctly by your auditory system (i.e., damage to your ear drum and loss of hearing).  This probably wouldn't be a problem if it was just that specific SOUND they could no longer pick up correctly, but it's more like everything that makes sounds at the same level.  Your auditory system, unlike muscles, does not get stronger. 

 

Think about it like a tarp or cloth stretched very tightly over a surface, and each sound is a ball of different size, weight, and material, coming from different angles and at different speeds.  Your eardrums are doing two things (well, much more, but let's not get TOO into it):

 

1) they filter out damaging levels of sound so the concussion doesn't actually reach the brain, causing some REAL problems

 

and

 

2) they tell the person on the other side of the tarp (your brain) which direction the ball came from, how hard it was thrown, how far away it was thrown from, what it's made out of....a plethora of information is received and passed to the brain in this way.

 

Throw a hard enough ball at the tarp, at a fast enough speed....and you're gonna do some damage to it.  Maybe next time you throw a similarly sized and weighted ball at the same spot (representing HERTZ and dB), and instead of bouncing it right off, the tarp is already too damaged IN THAT SPOT to form a recognizable impression for the person (brain) on the other side to figure anything out about.....voila, hearing damage and loss.

 

Edit:  I realize, in retrospect, that, while my above post seems informative, it doesn't actually add anything to the suggestion of in-game hearing loss.  For that, I apologise

[LeoIvanov]

Going to edit the main post with the updated info about indoor sounds, thanks for the contribution!

 

 

 

Edit:  I realize, in retrospect, that, while my above post seems informative, it doesn't actually add anything to the suggestion of in-game hearing loss.  For that, I apologise

 

And I just grabbed my popcorn... That was very informative and interesting to read!

[CzarUltra]

I'm all for a temporary ringing noise followed by a light mute on the rest of the games sounds after firing a gun. That'd be hella immersive.

[raymond]

I agree with the most of this but from a pistol you cant (or very hard) lose hearing. I think it hurt just a bit but Dassault rifles, rifles.. For them you need some war buds. Correct me if im wrong.

I actually shot a traumatic pistol twice in my life. My ears buzzed for about half an hour. Maybe it's just me or the fact that first time I was like 5 and second like 14... Anyways, the idea is ok, I actually wanted to suggest that (no BS) but it's just a small thing... I don't even use guns now that they have turned into zombie-spawners basically.

Edit: I shot outside both times

[Mike280]

Yah, I wasn't saying my ears were fine, or that I didn't actually suffer damage to them.  I was merely saying that the ringing stopped.  I couldn't tell you how much worse off my ears were after that hunting trip.

 

Also, I was a biology major in college, thanks for the refresher!  By saying "getting used to it" was a layman's way of under-complicating the science behind your ears being damaged and no longer receiving that wavelength of sound temporarily.  The cilia in the ears can slightly repair themselves by standing back up, but yes, your inner ears are not muscles, and can suffer permanent damage. 

[Asrayl]

Lots of wonderful med-science going on here, so I'll skip that and get down to brass tacks. Adding hearing loss wouldn't be a bad thing, but I think the overlay of something akin to tinnitus noise, a ringing at about 6khz would probably suit the situation better. Something temporary, longer and louder if the gun was fired indoors. 

 

It would be enough to make us re-consider our strategies, though not so crippling we stopped using guns altogether. And yes, the counter of ear muffs/plugs (and the temporary hard of hearing from it) would be a fine counter to it. 

 

Those who are already hard of hearing shouldn't get the ringing sound outdoors, and the deaf shouldn't get it at all. 

[ModdedTibby]

this is a fantastic idea i support it!

[SurvivingTestSubject]

I sort of like the idea of a hearing loss moodle... maybe even a background ringing noise... for short-term hearing impairment. Lots of things can affect a person's hearing briefly to temporarily.

 

However I was always taught with firearms, it seems more here have better experience than I, that hearing damage from firearm discharge takes a long while for it to accumulate. At all the shooting ranges I have been they explained their excessive concern about it as more a liability issue than an immediate danger.

With that being said if this is going to be added into the game ear plugs please. Also the earplugs could have other applications... like with rest... or... ... ...

[Evilwuun]

I sort of like the idea of a hearing loss moodle... maybe even a background ringing noise... for short-term hearing impairment. Lots of things can affect a person's hearing briefly to temporarily.

 

However I was always taught with firearms, it seems more here have better experience than I, that hearing damage from firearm discharge takes a long while for it to accumulate. At all the shooting ranges I have been they explained their excessive concern about it as more a liability issue than an immediate danger.

With that being said if this is going to be added into the game ear plugs please. Also the earplugs could have other applications... like with rest... or... ... ...

 

This is true: unless the barrel is directly next to your ear when it discharges, there isn't usually TOO much risk of "painful" damage.  Losing your hearing due to sound is typically a slow, unnoticed process.

 

With the current build, and my base being above the bookstore in West Point, I would almost like the earbuds just to drown out the sound of the hundreds of Zeds wandering around below me

[bobchaos]

I'd do it like they do for the weight and strength traits: You gain XP very slowly when you use your hearing (so basically any time you're not wearing earplugs or actively taking "hearing damage" to represent your character leaning more and more on his earing for survival (as opposed to being 100% visuocentric like most modern humans)) until you reach a "great hearing" trait or something. You'd lose XP at a much faster rate when doing really loud things, such as firing guns, or maybe standing too close to noise generators and whatever else is damn loud, bringing you closer to "hearing impaired" or downright "deaf" traits. Using earbuds would minimize/negate hearing damage, but also prevent XP gain.

 

I'd add to that a more temporary moodle for ears ringing from nearby gunshots or detonations to properly simulate the immediate consequences. The moodle would have the same effect as the hearing-loss traits and prevent hearing XP gain. Earbuds could simply apply one of these moodles.

 

*edit* It just occued to me that this would allow for characters that start deaf or suffer hearing damage to recover completly, which is not very realistic... I'd have to add on top: once you get a negative hearing trait, hearing XP gain stops altogether.

[AJ135]

Can I just point out that guns really don't need nerfed any further. They are already a last resort unless you are very resourceful (I like to use them to make sure an area is cleared). How about we also add that getting a headshot as an untrained marksman is pretty damn hard too which would make the first few levels of shooting nearly impossible to level up. How about we also add in stoppages and negligent discharges while panicked? Why don't we also add in the need to line up your shots? We need to realise that while it would be nice to add in all the realistic features of guns, a lot of them would render them completely useless. Guns are already a high risk, high reward weapon and in my honest opinion, they really don't need nerfed.