Concept: Sound Ping

[Smiley]

Hello, I'm new here. I live in Northern Kentucky (I've met and talked with the peeps who created the Zombies!!! boardgame) and absolutely adore Project Zomboid. It's one of those games with a huge amount of potential that a lot of games just haven't reached out to grasp despite countless tries.

 

What follows is one (of many) suggestions I hope make it into PZ, though if it doesn't - well... I'm definitely going to work with the modding community on no few of my other ideas.

 

Sound Pings

 

For those who have played Starcraft 2, as a Terran, you can build a radar tower that shows little red blips with exclaimation marks on them to express unknowns outside of your visible fog of war. It's very helpful.

 

I think a system that is similar to show temporary indicators for peripheral noises outside of your line of sight arc would be most helpful for immersion and survival. I found it somewhat less immersive that you as a player have no representation of peripheral threats outside your vision. This would give the player a reasonable way to keep on their toes in situations (which they would have) where they could get surrounded that is sensible and fits the theme of survival.

 

Some Idea Bullet Points:

 

- Gives you brief red rings with a exclaimation marks to indicate near noises of interest outside your LoS, like blips on radar (Exactly like Starcraft 2 Radar Towers). This can potentially be zombies, NPCs, players, etc; or even impactful noises in the environment (You could get an idea of what direction that window shatter came from). These blips might move if they continue making noise or simply vanish.

 

- The beauty of this is, unlike actually seeing in your line of sight arc, you are not sure what the ping is, just that it is a "something". It could be a player ally coming up behind you as much as a zombie.

 

- A player could get up close to a door and hope to catch some pings from a room they haven't opened yet. (Assumption that sound pings will work in a fashion similar to LoS, but with some bleed over from walls or obstacles)

 

- Modified Negative Trait: "Hard of Hearing" (-4. Decreases the range you see these red ping rings)

 

- Modified Positive Trait: "Excellent Hearing" (+6. Increases the range you see these red ping rings, maybe even beyond what your LoS would normally be)

 

- Negative Trait: "Paranoid" (-4. Sometimes see false Sound Pings that appear right near you, keeping you on edge.)

 

- A good idea could be making Listening itself a skill. Higher Listen, better range of hearing. It is a skill that would make sense to develop as one survives longer and longer in a zombie apocalypse. 

 

- Zombies thumping on windows/doors might ping automatically if within hearing range
    - Doors opening, glass breaking, etc.

    - Shambling or bumping around into another zombie.
    - Anything moving through forest or tall grass can ping if in range (this would be particularly paranoia inducing when huntable wildlife is added; what if you're afraid of a little rabbit or deer?)
    - (Potentially) Different surfaces might impact the pings of movement
        - Plain Grass muffles the sound (Can't hear it until it's practically up on you, near melee)
        - Carpet muffles the sound (can't hear it until it's practically up on you, near melee)

        - Dirt / Dirt Road has mild sound range (About half the normal; crunching dirt. Close.)
        - Road has decent sound range (Clacking of shoes on asphalt. Able to hear a decent bit away.)
        - Wood floor has very noticable sound range (Clacking of shoes on wood. Very good distance.)

 

Any thoughts?

[Tsambo]

I like this. Well, hearing is an all around very usefull sense.

And as it is now it's really useless ingame and it needs to improve greatly. I really like your idea, but those bleeps you describe shouldn't be too accurate, as in real life you aren't really sure from where exactly a sound comes from.

 

Another idea i just had is that maybe when you sneak or stay still you have more detailed and accurate bleeps (you hear better with more details) than when you run around raising hell and/or panicking!

[Elliohow]

Less likely to hear sounds if you and npcs are talking, so you can tell them to shut up. Might be fun

[Smiley]

Maybe moving could increase ping fade? Sneaking could decrease the speed pings fade. I was thinking that the ping would flash quickly in some cases, especially if the player is moving - maybe persist a little longer. Maybe get the Orienteering skill in on this, keeping the ping visibility time longer (thus making it easier to visually trace the location/direction of a sound)?

[Kajin]

I think this has been discussed before, but I can't for the life of me remember where and I'm too lazy to do a search right now. But yeah, a fair amount of people were in favor of having echoes representing sound waves pop up on screen whenever something makes noise out of sight.

[Daec]

I think this has been discussed before, but I can't for the life of me remember where and I'm too lazy to do a search right now. But yeah, a fair amount of people were in favor of having echoes representing sound waves pop up on screen whenever something makes noise out of sight.

even though i agree with you that it has been mentioned and discussed every now and then, This is pretty much one of the most fleshed out "soundwaves/echos/ping" suggestions.

 

he's got my vote =)