LE Immersive Sneaking Mod - Sound based sneak indicator

[NuclearFuzion]

Now before you say anything, I really don't come on these forums often, and this idea was probably said before, but I think this is an amazing idea. If it already exists, I haven't found it yet on Nexus mods.

 

I was thinking, I use iHUD all the time, and it's great, except the only indication I have for sneaking is that damned thing in the center of the screen. Now I play a stealth character, and as you can imagine, as great as I am an espionage, I still need that stealth indicator - but what if it wasn't a visual cue? What if it was a sound? What if you could hear it instead of having the all-seeing-eye in the middle of your screen?

 

That's where this comes in - if you can see where this is going, it's exactly what you think it is, a sound loop that is tied to the awareness of enemies, that gets louder and louder, and then an alert noise if you are spotted.

 

For example, let's say we used a heartbeat loop, and then a violin chord when "detected" is supposed to appear - you don't have a sneak crosshair, you just have sound. Now when you're not detected, the heartbeat is relatively quiet and slow, the sound file is shorter, and there is a gap between each time the sound is repeated, and the tempo of the heartbeat and volume gets louder the more "the eye is opened", without actually having the thing in the middle of the screen.

 

That's not all, when you're sneaking, you have the normal heartbeat sound to indicate that you're sneaking, but when you're detected, even by the very slightest bit, the speed jolts up a noticeable amount, to indicate that you're not completely hidden anymore. This is a clear cue. Now you don't have to use a heartbeat sound, you can replace it with music, or have the "detected" sound as something else. I prefer something that relates to rhythm, as the pace quickens.

 

Now something else I like about this idea is that it adds a lot to the immersion if you don't see anything in the middle of the screen, while having a sound that's relative to something like music in movies, the pace increases, and the tension goes up - I can imagine playing with this already.

 

If you do decide to take up the challenge of this mod, please let me know, I would really love to have it. It's upto you if you want to give me credit for the idea, I just want to see this in skyrim.

[ghoulrainbow]

I would really like something like this! I understand it's really difficult to implement a sneaking mechanic realistically, but this sounds pretty cool. I'm not sure I'd personally want it to be a heartbeat, though, since Skyrim has taught me to associate that noise with being close to death and it'd probably scare the bejeezus out of me every time I sneaked. XD

 

Also, I don't know about you, but when I play as a stealth character I find footsteps, voices, and general noises to be an essential part of my sneaking. I always play with the music off for those characters, because it can be really invaluable if you're still working on your sneak skill and you need to know if there's someone around that corner-- sometimes footsteps can be the only indicator that you're about to bump into someone. (Especially true if you're trying to do Thieves Guild/Brotherhood jobs in a city where you already have a high bounty.) How would this be reconciled with playing music or a sound effect in order to sneak?

 

I'm really into the idea of a more immersive way of sneaking than "there is a big white eye in the middle of my vision and it opens when people are looking at me", though, I think it's a great idea.

[NuclearFuzion]

Anything with a sense of rhthym is probably good for this

Edited May 27, 2013 by NuclearFuzion