Let's Discuss That Heartbeat for Survivors

My problem is that the visual TR thing gives more information than it should. It glows before you can actually hear the TR/Lullaby. This makes it required at a competitive level. You can see here that I couldn't even hear the lullaby or know the killer was near, but thanks to the visual TR/Lullaby indicator, I was given an early warning. Needs a balance pass.

It's not cheating but it definitely is a slight advantage. You get notified of even the faintest of heartbeats and lullabies. It is an accessibility option though, so I'm fine with it.

This is something I have metioned a couple times before. There are also killers with hearing impairments, so there should be some help for these people. However, this is a lot harder to balance. My suggestion is that BHVR define a certain volume of sound that should be heard and noises with a volume at least that high should be displayed directionally with an indication of what sound it is and how close the source is. This would help at least a little while not giving an advantage to players, who don't need it.

Yep the heartbeat is like a sonar, which I've always thought is not fair. It comes from the Killers specific position and doesn't just get louder like the lullabies do. With these $200.00 headphones I have, you really really notice it. xD

I don't feel like it's that much of an advantage for me personally. I don't have any hearing impairments (at least I don't think so). But even so, I use the visual indicator to let me know roughly how close by the Killer is. I don't use headphones to play, so it's sometimes too hard for me to hear the terror radius music getting louder as the Killer approaches with all the other loud ambient noises in the game.

The temporary Spine Chill buff also let you know if you were heading in the Killer's direction, but now that's been removed I never use this perk any more. The visual indicator that replaced it isn't as precise, so I don't see it as much of a problem.

I didn't even know sound in the game was directional. You can't tell if you're sat in front of a TV. I mean, you could argue that using headphones is also an "unfair" advantage if your opponents isn't too, but lots of players still do.

It's not the first time this sort of thing has been brought up in games. There's another famous example of this that I could think of which was the visual noise indicator in Fortnite, a pretty good accessibility feature until people figured out that it'd ping you of noises that most people couldn't even hear. Accessibility features are great but unfortunately they'll always be the 'better' option, playing without the visual TR depends on your reaction times, volume, attention, and in some cases the actual TR music itself so reactions vary. But with a visual TR it happens the instant the killer comes into your range and immediately gives you the information you need to make a decision. That'll always be a thing with this sort of stuff. The visual TR is great for the hearing impaired but it's even better if you're not, it's not necessary to use but it's kind of like WoO where using it gives you a tonne of extra information you otherwise wouldn't normally get.

Is having a good headset cheating? Because that's what the visual heartbeat emulates. It kicks in when the faintest of TR can be heard, which might not be audible for most, but it is there.

I dont use it, but I've asked some randoms and my own friends what they prefer. A general answer I got was it is nice when you have to keep game sound down for family talking, work, being a streamer, etc. The visual queue allows them to play without sound.

Now, i cant do that. I need my sound to the point my SWF friends are drowned out when I'm in chase. I need the sound lol.

I use it because I play in a swf and my friend always has his audio routed through his soundbar but party chat through headphones. This results in situations where I can't tell if the TR is on his side or mine, since I route all my audio through my headphones.

Outside of a few exceptions, though, non-hearing impaired people are using it for an advantage.

It's not cheating, but it is definitely an advantage. There is a reason every content creator uses it.

I don't think its cheating since it just cuts out the middle man of skill for regular players, a ton of killers with a ton of different music knowing which music is which distance is something mind-numbing to expect players to memorize so having it be an accessibility feature that also lets people skip memorization is fine.

I do think having a visual indicator for gens being worked on in what would be normal hearing range would be fine since it still helps the accessibility crowd while having a similar effect of pulling a small sound that you could be heard for someone with enough time and just make it visible as well as something that shows "intensity" of the gen in range based on sound because I believe gens with more progress are louder would be a fair compromise if you wanted killers to have a similar strength feature that doubles for accessibility

I think they often do that so hard of hearing viewers can experience the game streams in the same way everyone else does.

No its not cheating, its a part of the game.

I have tinitus + for reasons i wont tell here im unable to play with a headset. That puts me at a disatvantage so i really need that visual heartbeat.

And yes, killers should prob have something like that at least when they are close to gens being worked on.

not cheating.

would be nice.

I knew... but my headphones are kinda bad so it never helped much...

I don't remember the game I first played that had this, but it had subtitles change size based on distance for sounds. That is ideally what both Survivor and Killer would get as an option to show up in a corner of your choosing (or wherever). That way deaf/hard of hearing gamers can have the same information as everyone else, and in the case of (frequently) bugged audio, you have a guaranteed functional 'sound' in the form of the subtitles.

It's not cheating but killers need something equivalent.

I think the heartbeat is great, use it myself.

What I dislike is the lullaby indicator. I get it for Huntress because it's her gimmick with the singing, but for Sadako, Trickster, really anyone with a decently sized TR already or has a stealth element it doesn't make much sense to me.

Theoretically, killers with a great headset can hear survivors through walls and pin point their location. Killers without that can't do that normally.

Should therefore all killers have the option to see survivors they can hear in a small radius via aura read or killer instinct?

Absolutely not in my opinion, because it robs survivors of crucial mind game potential and therefore skill expression.

This is a great example to how difficult it is to decide what's acceptable as accessibility and what goes too far.

what you said is a terrible example.

killers should get accessibility options just like survivors. yes or no?

gonna assume you are not a terrible person and answered yes... so instead of saying dumb examples of overpowered things, let's use our time and effort into suggesting and talking about things that we think are actually viable.

like, a small foot symbol appearing in the general direction of the sound. or a small arrow like the ones from the xenomorphs tunnel. the symbol can be more or less "solid" based on distance or how loud it should be. and/or use distance from the center of the screen to indicate one of these.

a gen that you should be hearing being worked on should get a certain symbol indicating it aswell, same if it's not being worked on but not regressing. and a different one for regressing.

these 2 things seem pretty fair to me and should not be an issue.

your argument from "the mindgame potential". is it a mindgame potential? if I should be able to hear the sound and pin point your location, then it's not a mindgame, you are just taking advantage of the fact that I can't properly hear you.

I don't see the difference in this from you just turning my screen off for a second while you run. it's not game mechanics, it's just taking advantage that I'm currently not receiving the full information I should be receiving.

imagine this, we are playing chess.

because it's chess, we know all the possible things that can be made.

but then at some point you look away from the board, I notice that, and I play my move.

you look back and ask me what I did, but I don't tell you.

this leads you to lose the game because you could not properly prepare to what I was doing, you were too late when you realized.

this to me is the same thing. it's not game mechanics being used, it's not mind games, it's not skill expression. your opponent lacked a critical info that by the rules of the game they should be getting, and you are taking advantage of the fact that they lack it.

in this case, they lack an expensive headset or they are hard of hearing. congratulations? such mindgames, much wow?

Killers do have visuals though. Blood on the ground, Crows flying off, Scratch marks, The pistons on the gens, the yellow highlight of gen location.

What would be your solution to some of the problems then? Spirit would be my starting point. For people hard of hearing shes almost impossible to play i feel.