GR HUD & Voice Switch

[MarkAm_i]

The Ghost Recon HUD is fairly minimal. I mean we can't complain about it when we compare it with it's brothers-in-law the GRAWs.

For the longest time, I just left the default options active when playing GR. The Soldier Panel on the left, the Weapon Panel on the right, and the Action Interface, or ret, in the center.

Recently, I discovered that toggling these off-screen can increase immersion into GR, by a great degree.

Since playing Arma 2 (where you are able to raise and lower your weapon completely) I decided I'd have to try it in GR. The results are surprising.

The changes that I applied were like this: I began to toggle off the Soldier Panel & Weapon Panel for the majority the time playing. This made the screen feel cleaner. When I needed to check my ammo status I would hit the Toggle Weapon Panel key. The extra time that it takes to do this is a simialr to checking your clip in your rifle as in life.

The absence of the two panels on the HUD is of such a great improvement in quality of gameplay that I really wish I had found out about it long ago. It freshens up the game and as I said, it improves the sense of immersion.

For ease, I set the 'i' and the 'o' key to toggle the Weapon & Soldier Panel, so they are in easy reach.

At mission launch I toggle them off and I then also like to toggle the Action Interface, my ret off the screen. I 'lower' my weapon when it's not needed at the ready, then I toggle it on as I'd raise my weapon.

I use the Right Alt key for easy reach. The F keys are far too clumsy to use and I don't like to take my eyes off the game at those critical moments.

After I got used to the toggles I found I really enjoyed having a clear view of the map. It increases the feeling of immersion in what was already a very immersive game.

Well worth trying if you haven't yet. thumbsup

The other discovery was the Voice Switch in the options, as I like to play with AI backup the majority of the time.

Now, the voices in GR aren't that bad, but I found when I unchecked the voice switch, the game was much improved. Immersion increased and I found that I could throw out ROE orders as frequently as needed without being distracted by hearing repetitive confirmations by each fireteam.

This is something else I would encourage players to try if they haven't already.

There are plus/minuses to switching the voices off, but for me the pluses win out by far.

[RileyFletcher_01]

Nice sig

You must be watching me play Ghost Recon or something because this is what I started doing a while back. Every time I start up a mission, I hit H and J to toggle off my HUD. Like you said it is much cleaner and I even recall thinking the same thing about how long it would take to check your magazine

My TXM mod that I usually play with has most voices off except for the ROE and Movement stuff, so I leave that checked on.

[Operative]

I think we should mod the AI sentences, so the kill confirmation ones are not played.

[MarkAm_i]

I think we should mod the AI sentences, so the kill confirmation ones are not played.

Agreed. A friend sent me a mod that eliminates that text and many of the sounds for SP. I find the game so much better without the confirmations, it's a really important aspect for improving the GR experience.

When I go play coop and see the confirmations, it ruins the experience now that I've seen the game without them. Something to consider when suggesting ideas for the mods in development.

[Tinker]

Mark would you try to see if you do have a mod that removes the text.

Also check this recent topic: HERE

[ApexMods]

I know a mod that has the kill confirmation audio and text messages removed...

From the Heroes Unleashed ReadMe:

- Some audio-visual feedback (e.g. on-screen text messages and voice

confirmation of kills) is removed to decrease diversion, increase

immersion, and to improve overall suspense and realism (e.g. without

kill confirmation you can never be sure whether a distant threat has

really been eliminated unless you confirm it yourself).

[RileyFletcher_01]

How'd you do that? I'm not even thinking of releasing Texas Militia I figure it out because that red text absolutely destroys gameplay.

[Oelmuvun]

Not to be a downer, but having the kill confirmation over the radio, while it gets old, it is still useful in that you know if your other team has actually removed the spotted threat or not. This affects your orders to them. Do you need them to back off and approach from a different angle? Do you need to go in yourself and take over? etc.

I would not want to play a mod where I personally have stop what I am doing each time to switch over and confirm every single kill, each time my AI encounters a bad guy. That is just too much micromanaging and baby sitting.

Trying to play with my team here, not as the entire team.

To be fair, in real life a team would not radio each kill to everybody else in every other unrelated team unless it was actually important. but then in GR the ghost AI cannot announce cleared areas either, so between getting each kill vs getting nothing I would take confirmations of each kill.

But that is just me.

[randomtangent]

What would be interesting is if the confirmations were distance and density and threat level based. Nobody cares if you kill that lone guy with the pistol or a loud/inaccurate gun at medium range, but when you take down that sniper or other suppressed weapon holder in the distance it gets announced.

[/randomtangent]

[RileyFletcher_01]

The thing is, even your teammates might not know if they got the enemy or not. It just makes it way too easy knowing if you got someone. If you still wanted confirmation though, voices would be better.

[ApexMods]

Not to be a downer, but having the kill confirmation over the radio, while it gets old, it is still useful in that you know if your other team has actually removed the spotted threat or not.

That's exactly the point NOT to have the kill confirmation. As Riley put it:

The thing is, even your teammates might not know if they got the enemy or not.

In real life not every kill can be confirmed, but GR does not make a difference between an obvious kill and one that its not quite clear for the shooter. If GR took this difference into account for its kill confirmations I'd agree with you, but the reasoning behind the removal is to reflect the uncertainty that you and/or your team mates may not know for sure whether the tango really went down for good.

[Oelmuvun]

So not being able to do it half the time is justification for not doing it at all? Ok. Whatever floats your boat.

Based on what you have seen of GR while modding, is there a chance of making a mod that takes the AI ghost's view and calculates visible profile of the enemy and stance (*Edit and number of hit animations) to make a guess?

So, if a bad guy was prone and the AI took a few shots that were on target, it would not know if the enemy was dead or just not shooting and could say that he is not sure. Well, knowing the AI it would continue shooting anyway.

Or if there is a guy behind a wall and a ghost shoots him and he drops behind the wall the ghost would also not know if he is crouched and hurt or killed. He would then tell the team that the person he was shooting at may not be down.

Actually, you could reserve the diamonds on the map for when the AI unsure of who they hit but nothing else. In real life you would tell friendlies that you grazed someone and they fell into a crater or behind a wall or other structure and where that was. The AI cannot tell you much about enemy position with these mods that disable the diamonds.(I am not complaining about the diamond removal)

Anyway so then the next time a friendly is in the area they can check and confirm, removing the diamond if the enemy is either dead or missing and still alive.

Edited May 14, 2012 by Oelmuvun

[MarkAm_i]

Mark would you try to see if you do have a mod that removes the text.

Also check this recent topic: HERE

Hey Tinker, it was skyclad who hooked me up with the notext mod. I haven't had any reply from him in a couple weeks, but I don't think he would mind my sharing this link with you.

notext mod

Like I said, it works great for SP but needs some tweaking for coop yet. For one, names must be removed in coop, which is really no big deal. Also, when I play the mod with Centcom I still get the Afghan rebel kills or killed by line of text. If you figure out how to remove this I would be grateful if you can share how. I've ran into the line that's left in other mods too and would like to know how I can fix it. The mod has been active since I got it, a really nice change.

Edited May 14, 2012 by MarkAm_i

[Tinker]

Thnx, THIS topic must not be in need of a reply.

[RileyFletcher_01]

@Oelmuun,

I would think that it would be better for the game to be more challenging than not challenging enough; not enough information rather than too much, agree?

About the notext mod...

Do we get permission to use this? Can we contact the guy?

Edited May 14, 2012 by RileyFletcher_01

[Oelmuvun]

riley, there is a line between hard in the name of realism and hard in the name of hard.. Ghosts are not a bunch of rambo wannabes. they do need to communicate in some manner for what they do.

I suppose it may not be very challenging once you memorize the locations of all the people on the map....

*shrug*

I guess I just have to go play ARMA II instead. (but even ARMA has insta-confirms so that is not hard enough! )

[ApexMods]

So not being able to do it half the time is justification for not doing it at all?

That's kind of a glass half full/half empty situation, isn't it? Faced with the choice between a percentage of unrealistic kill confirmations or none at all, personally I'd choose none. In the next version of Heroes Unleashed I take a slightly different path, though.

Based on what you have seen of GR while modding, is there a chance of making a mod that takes the AI ghost's view and calculates visible profile of the enemy and stance (*Edit and number of hit animations) to make a guess?

So, if a bad guy was prone and the AI took a few shots that were on target, it would not know if the enemy was dead or just not shooting and could say that he is not sure. Well, knowing the AI it would continue shooting anyway.

Or if there is a guy behind a wall and a ghost shoots him and he drops behind the wall the ghost would also not know if he is crouched and hurt or killed. He would then tell the team that the person he was shooting at may not be down.

Actually, you could reserve the diamonds on the map for when the AI unsure of who they hit but nothing else. In real life you would tell friendlies that you grazed someone and they fell into a crater or behind a wall or other structure and where that was. The AI cannot tell you much about enemy position with these mods that disable the diamonds.(I am not complaining about the diamond removal)

Anyway so then the next time a friendly is in the area they can check and confirm, removing the diamond if the enemy is either dead or missing and still alive.

All good ideas, but well beyond the scope of what can be done through soft-modding GR. The diamonds situation is similar to the kill confirmation conundrum above, and for the next HU update I chose removal of command map diamonds.

Like I said, it works great for SP but needs some tweaking for coop yet. For one, names must be removed in coop, which is really no big deal. Also, when I play the mod with Centcom I still get the Afghan rebel kills or killed by line of text. If you figure out how to remove this I would be grateful if you can share how. I've ran into the line that's left in other mods too and would like to know how I can fix it.

Thnx, THIS topic must not be in need of a reply.

Sorry about the late reply.

I guess I just have to go play ARMA II instead.

Oh, come on, Oelmuvun. Don't be a spoilsport just because we may disagree on something. We're just discussing different opinions here. After all, you can implement the solution you prefer in your own mod or - for personal use - by modifying existing mods to your personal needs - GR really makes this easy enough.

[Oelmuvun]

When I was playing with riley we were using kill confirmations but no diamonds. Without diamonds you hear little from the AI about enemy positions as I remember.(or was I just ignoring/forgetting it?) I suppose I might actually go for no kill confirmations but retaining diamonds since the ghosts in GR have no good way of calling out enemies(unlike in ARMA where you have a good system). Taking away the challenge or not, I feel like a real team would communicate in most situations. But that is my own personal misconception.

And about ARMA, it was said kinda jokingly because it also has kill confirmations. But really I do like ARMA II and GR. Though I would not be surprised if GR took a back seat to ARMA now that I finally got the latest multi-GB update.. again.

And, TrackIR! <3 TrackIR.

*Edit

Anyway, I am not the one making the mod, do what you want. Just derailing the thread with personal opinions and crap. hehe

Edited May 15, 2012 by Oelmuvun

[RileyFletcher_01]

Hey, I don't have any problem with people disagreeing here. We're debating what would be best, and if you only get one person's opinion then you won't get a good mod. I actually think we are being productive here.

The thing is, when you say I think they would communicate, I counter it with this:

I think they would use their brains.

Oh yeah. When testing my latest stealth mission, I put them on Recon and hold. A few seconds later a ghillie sniper starts idly patrolling 300 meters away. No joke. It is 300m. He has no idea anything is going on. But do my AI just try to avoid him or sneak by? No. They start firing their M60s on fully auto non-stop at the rock beside him which totally blew our cover. They do it all the time. I'll be ALMOST to the objective after two hours of sneaking past patrols and I see on the soldier stats screen, their ammo starts draining down because they're shooting full-auto at guys half across the map. They walk into my rifle barrel while I'm shooting. They run through open doors just as I throw a grenade inside. When I'm about to uncork a rocket, they decide to stand in front of me so I can't shoot and the tank obliverates my entire squad.

Enough of ranting on their stupidity. You have a point Oelmuvun, a very good one. My idea in an above post was to remove the red text but leave the voice confirmations, but nobody saw it I guess. That would be the best we could do. You agree Apex?

EDIT

Speaking of which, we need to play some Ghost Recon again sometime.

Edited May 15, 2012 by RileyFletcher_01