noise audibility

[Gawain]

i did a little experiment and played some games with eax disabled. spekkio is right that eax fixes more problems than it creates. the biggest balance problem i encountered was the inability to hear the placing of sticky cams and the launching of frag nades. on the other hand, the biggest problems with eax superhearing is that you can't use hbs (without snares) without giving away your position if a merc is in it's range (silent pull out/no laser). the object of this topic is to create a list of what you should / shoudln't be able to hear to give a gross idea how to implement eax the right way.

[Succubus Dryad Of The Undying Comet]

nability to hear the placing of sticky cams and the launching of frag nades

I play without eax and i can hear those perfectly, in a ~20 meter radius.

[Spekkio]

If you do something that would normally make noise in real life, and the merc is relatively close to you, then yes he should hear it. If you take out the HB sensor from 5 ft away from the merc, he should hear it. However, mercs shouldn't be able to hear someone rolling in a vent or sliding down a pole from anywhere on the map. That's just dumb.

[InvisibleMan999]

Things you need to hear:

-Placing of sticky cam near you (moderate radius)
-Frags being launched (large radius)
-Sticky shocker being fired (relatively short hearing radius)
-Things blowing up (large radius)
-Merc footsteps (moderate radius)

Things you shouldn't hear:
-Spy drawing a gun silently.
-Spy motions (unless it pings the reticule, or you're *very* close)
-Camo activation (camo needs to be silent otherwise it sucks)

Generally if a spy doesn't ping the reticule, he shouldn't be heard via normal sound, with the exception of firing the sticky shocker or the gadget launcher.

[Farley4Fan]

Agree with invisible.  The decisions made on EAX could render my pulse nade or chaff suggestion useless.  Glad we can discuss this.

Spekkio, you are wrong.  This game isn't real life, once again.

[Succubus Dryad Of The Undying Comet]

Spekkio is right. Sound SHOULD be realistic.

[Bob_Bobber0]

I think spekkio would agree with invisible man because those sound like realistic goals. Your not gunna hear everything that happens on the map, or really two rooms down or whatever, the sound should be designed so that its fair for both parties and also so that one person doesn't solely rely on sound as a means to finding a spy/merc.

[Gawain]

sticky shocker being fired should be moderate-far
sticky cam being placed should be moderate-far

the sound environment should be rather realistic. there's still enough room for balancing since no one knows how loud a sticky shocker is etc

[Bob_Bobber0]

gameplay should force players to rely on both audio and visual, on should not overpower the other. ie. you can hear everything that goes on, or have extensive vision modes.

[Succubus Dryad Of The Undying Comet]

let the merc Hear EVERYTHING in a 5 meter radius, while anything >5 meter stays on what Invisible said.

[Bob_Bobber0]

sounds convincing. The problem is when things happen in a room opposite of you, should you still be able to hear it?

[frvge]

No. EAX occlusion makes you hear through thin wooden doors, but not through 1 meter thick concrete walls. That's the power of EAX.

[Farley4Fan]

Balance over realism.

[Bob_Bobber0]

Papa, I think realism will equate to balance naturally, and if not then of course it should be tweaked.

[neth]

imo cams should be audible only from close distance. They need a buff cause now theyre kinda useless.