Better representation of noise?

[sardonica]

Noise is a vital 'resource' which deeply effects the player. But for now, there's no good way for a new player to gauge the 'noisiness' of particular actions.

Can we develop a way to more clearly communicate the concept of noise to an unspoiled player?

[Galefury]

Some sort of advanced tutorial about tactics could cover noise. It should be much more free-form than the regular tutorial, and with fewer message tiles. Something like a fairly easy sprint with some signposts stuck in. It would be hard to do well though, and might be a lot of work to maintain.

[sardonica]

Some sort of advanced tutorial about tactics could cover noise. It should be much more free-form than the regular tutorial, and with fewer message tiles. Something like a fairly easy sprint with some signposts stuck in. It would be hard to do well though, and might be a lot of work to maintain.

How about making a spell that crosses a certain noise threshold pop up an alert?

<This spell causes a ruckus.>

[Galefury]

Some really loud spells already mention noise in their messages, it's not really helping. It still took me way too long to learn the importance of noise.

[bcadren]

Perhaps it should just say how many AUDs away an action could be heard when using it...

[MoogleDan]

While I know we want to keep the GUI as simple as possible, I imagine the simplest approach would be to simply have a "Noise" readout right next to where it shows how many AUTs your last action used. If you don't want to use numbers, simply have a colored box: Blue for near silent, then Light Blue, Light Green, Yellow, Light Red, and Red for deafening. It seems like that'd be a really easy system to read, giving players a quick estimate of the consequences of their actions without making them worry too much about the numbers.

[DracheReborn]

How about adding a noise meter to the display? Similar to the HP/MP bar, or Temp bar for LOrc. The display just shows much noise you're making each round. This could be made configurable (like option_enable_noise_meter or something) for people who think the display is too busy already. Perhaps with color coding - gray below a certain threshold, yellow for moderate noise, red for very loud noise. Advice could go like: try to keep it at gray as much as possible, if it goes to yellow, expect monsters to investigate, if it goes to red, you've possibly woken the whole level.

Granted, I'm not too good with noise and maybe the above is too simplistic (it doesn't take layout or ambient noise into account, for example). I'd definitely welcome an advanced tutorial covering noise.

Edit: what MoogleDan said

[Mankeli]

Perhaps it should just say how many AUDs away an action could be heard when using it...

That would probably make it easier to compare different sources of noise but I don't think it would be that helpful in telling the player what the noise they are making actually does here and now. Walls etc. terrain features muffle noises to a certain degree and then there is the ambient noise level of different branches to take into account (although ambient noise probably hasn't that big of an effect on most situations).

Moogledan's proposal would be better IMO because it would avoid the need for exact calculations and numbers.

[Galefury]

I believe someone suggested that before, and I think it's a good idea. Actually showing people how much noise they make would be really good. But last time this was discussed it was brought up that not just the noise from last turn matters. Also monsters are noisy too, and that is also important. It might be better to show some sort of aggregate information about noise during the last few turns.

I think what might work very well is having two colored boxes: one that shows the noise you made last turn, and one that shows the maximum from you and also from monsters in line of sight during the last 5 or so turns. The first one is for direct feedback so people can learn what makes how much noise. The other provides information that is actually relevant for gameplay. Ambient noise could be taken into account by adjusting the color scale depending on location, possibly only for the second box.

[galehar]

It's no so easy to assess the source of a noise. What if magic dart triggers an inner flame chain reaction? What if it is triggered by an ally?
So probably, the meter should just display the loudest noise you heard during the last turn, without caring about the source.

[sardonica]

It's no so easy to assess the source of a noise. What if magic dart triggers an inner flame chain reaction? What if it is triggered by an ally?
So probably, the meter should just display the loudest noise you heard during the last turn, without caring about the source.

I agree, just so long as the unspoiled player has some idea of noise. Just letting her know about it would make her more aware.

[rebthor]

It's no so easy to assess the source of a noise. What if magic dart triggers an inner flame chain reaction? What if it is triggered by an ally?
So probably, the meter should just display the loudest noise you heard during the last turn, without caring about the source.

It's better than the current system where all the monsters have excellent hearing and can basically pinpoint where a noise came from but my character doesn't even know where a slurping sound or blaring wail is coming from.

[njvack]

I'm with Galehar -- an indicator should tell you how much noise you heard, not how much noise you think you (or someone on your team?) made. Anything else requires a bunch of complicated, nonintuituve stuff.

The noise messages in spell text generally reads like flavor text -- largely, I think, because it isn't applied universally. But boy howdy, do I not know how to fit another meter in a 80x25 console window.

[DracheReborn]

But boy howdy, do I not know how to fit another meter in a 80x25 console window.

Lava Orc did it fine with the temperature meter. Granted, LO's having both the temperature meter and noise meter could be a problem.

It's better than the current system where all the monsters have excellent hearing and can basically pinpoint where a noise came from but my character doesn't even know where a slurping sound or blaring wail is coming from.

Question: is it a spoiler for players to know which direction a noise is coming from? In Tiles, for example, the minimap could be used to indicate noise source direction. Obviously we'd need to come up with something equivalent for console if this is allowed.

[galehar]

It's better than the current system where all the monsters have excellent hearing and can basically pinpoint where a noise came from but my character doesn't even know where a slurping sound or blaring wail is coming from.

Question: is it a spoiler for players to know which direction a noise is coming from? In Tiles, for example, the minimap could be used to indicate noise source direction. Obviously we'd need to come up with something equivalent for console if this is allowed.

The proposal from this thread is just about noise level, there is nothing about the location of the source of sounds. There has already been a proposal, and a patch by galefury for printing the cardinal direction to the noise source in messages (eg: "You hear shoutings from the north-east"). The patch lacked a bit of polish and was never merged. Hopefully, this isn't the end of the story.

[DracheReborn]

The proposal from this thread is just about noise level, there is nothing about the location of the source of sounds. There has already been a proposal, and a patch by galefury for printing the cardinal direction to the noise source in messages (eg: "You hear shoutings from the north-east"). The patch lacked a bit of polish and was never merged. Hopefully, this isn't the end of the story.

Yes, but if we're thinking of adding interface elements for noise level, it might be possible to indicate direction at the same time (assuming this is allowed). As an example of what I mean, what if the minimap in Tiles shows noise sources colored by intensity? That would show both pieces of information (noise level and direction) at the same time. Your own location on the minimap could be colored to show your own noise level.

[roctavian]

It would be useful to have a god that is focused on noise, so that players could learn more about how sound affects the game. It could have an echolocation sort of power which could show the player visually how far sounds travel, or intensity of sound, like auras are currently depicted. This would help get players thinking more about how sound works, and would give them a feel for how far sound travels and how it behaves, without requiring a noise meter to be put into the general UI.

Gods are useful in these situations, as they can showcase specific and technical game mechanics without requiring every player to pay attention to them all the time. An opportunity for players to interact more deeply with noise level in Crawl would also tell us a lot more about what noise information is more or less useful for the player to know, in general.

[Marbit]

It could be a simple color indicator of how much noise the player has heard in the last ten turns.
The indicator has five levels and works a bit like a street light.
Triggering an alarm trap will inmediately raise the level and it will go down with time.
This works as a kind of status that is always present.

Example:


We could also use numbers or symbols for color blind people.
Something like this:

[galehar]

As an example of what I mean, what if the minimap in Tiles shows noise sources colored by intensity?

What about console? You can't have more information in tiles than in console. So any new noise interface must bring as much info to console players as tiles players. Your minimap idea isn't feasible on console.

It could be a simple color indicator of how much noise the player has heard in the last ten turns.

I don't think stuff you heard ten turns ago is very relevant. IMHO, just displaying the last turn is better and simpler

[XuaXua]

Concentric circles like a volume symbol?

[DracheReborn]

@galehar, sure that's why I said:

Obviously we'd need to come up with something equivalent for console if this is allowed.

But as long as we're thinking new UI elements, maybe we should try to figure in things like direction too.

Btw I agree that displaying just last turn's noise usefully seems problematic enough already.

[galehar]

Obviously we'd need to come up with something equivalent for console if this is allowed.

Well, I have no idea how we can do something equivalent to your minimap idea in console. It has to be realistic and usable. Console players can't be forced to open the map mode and toggle the sound overlay everytime they want to check a noise source location.
Galefury's patch just add some information to the sound message and I think it's the way to go.

Regarding your "is this allowed" question, currently, there is no information given on the location of the source of a noise. If we choose to give this information (and from a gameplay perspective, it is fine that we do), then we need to give exactly the same information regardless of the interface. That's why a simple direction indicator seems the best way to do it IMO.

[MoogleDan]

How about a thin border around the entire screen? Could THAT be color-coded to reflect sound intensity and direction? That would keep it out of the GUI entirely, and would work in Tiles of Console. Not very color-blind friendly though.

[Marbit]

It could be a simple color indicator of how much noise the player has heard in the last ten turns.

I don't think stuff you heard ten turns ago is very relevant. IMHO, just displaying the last turn is better and simpler

mmm perhaps we are trying to signal different things. I'm not only interested in last turn's noise but also on its short term effects. For me the roar of a dragon will remain relevant a for a few turns, I know that it will atract monsters that will soon arrive. My point is that if the effects of noise go beyond one turn, a status signal that last more that one turn may be useful... imagine if any other status was only marked for one turn (contamination, berserk, confuse, exausted).

I just don't want to have to check and remember the noise indicator every turn to check if monsters are coming on my way. I want to check the indicator and say "well, there was no noise in the batle, I think I can rest here" or look it up and know that I better find another place to rest because there was a lot of recent noise and monsters may be coming.

[Gunthar]

The idea of the character being able to determine the general direction of any noice (monsters, vault entrances, portals, activated traps and so on) is very good. For the console just use a middle dot or a dotted zero and color it to the corresponding noice level as recomended on a posting above.

[galehar]

How about a thin border around the entire screen?

That would be 10% of the screen estate of a standard 80x24 console. I don't think this is acceptable.

[Amnesiac]

Would be nice to know the direction from which sould comes. You could just be given a message like "you hear a slurping noise from south-west" or "you hear a slurping noise from there ↙"

[Galefury]

That's exactly what I did, but sound messages are a bit weird and go through a few different channels. It would have been nice to unify this and have one central place for inserting the direction instead of adding the replacement to a bunch of different functions, but I didn't get around to it. I also added a rough estimation of distance to the message, which may have been too much. Maybe I'll find the motivation to work on this again at some point, but currently there are a lot of things I would rather do than sift through Crawl's noise code.

Edit: an example for stuff going through lots of different channels: a lot of messages that involve hearing something do not correspond to any noise, they are just messages, and nothing else. IIRC the "slurping sound" is one of these. You can "hear" it across the whole level (a message is printed), but it wont wake up the whole level. I'm not even sure it makes any noise at all.