Introduction
Something which really makes any war type game feel immersible to me is the sounds of battle. Whether in Battlefield 3 where you have gunfire & explosions heard from a far off area of the map, or in Chivalry where you hear screaming from every player around when their limbs are being severed. While these all may not seem the most "PG" type quality to games, I still feel it's imperative that any game with a detailed combat system & visuals have a great set of sounds to that system. Keep in mind, I don't really
expect these ideas to be implemented, but I thought they are all ways in which I feel could improve immersion & the enjoyment of combat besides a good combat system, visuals, & the brilliant AI.
Bloody Murder
While I'm no sociopath, I've always thought it adds a sort of
realistic to hear people whelp in pain when they get chopped with a sword. To me, it also makes a lot of sense that someone would yell out when they're being hammered down. Now, I don't see there being the type of finishers that were in AoC persay. Still, something I'd love to see, or hear rather, is the sounds of terror in those who are being attacked & at low health of sorts. This could also give out a way for people to be able to heal allies just by following those who are yelling cries of pain of sorts. Not to mention it would give you a way to know your health is low besides just looking at your health bar all the time. A good example of what I'm saying is kind of how in Skyrim, when certain enemies were low health they'd fall to the floor and beg you to stop. . change that with them just yelling in pain or something.
To summarize, upon being at a low amount of health your character starts to yell out cries of pain, and upon death he has a realistic, yet blood curling cry of anguish as he falls. While I'm not saying it should be just someone yelling at the top of their lungs, I think it both bolsters the morale of one group in battle, but also can lower the morale of enemies. That is, by them not only being able to see their comrades fall, but hear them falling as well so to speak.
Battle Emotes
Now, we all know that you could just implement emotes with going " /charge " for this, but I thought why not add more to it? Similar to Chivalry ( which I will bring up a bit in this, keep in mind. ) when you press C when charging, your character lets out a terrific yell that feels like something you'd do when charging to your death essentially, haha. On the other hand, when you press C holding still, he does an animation & some sort of taunt depending on your class & side. Now, something that Chivalry does that I do not like is that when you taunt when not moving, you're stuck in an animation you can't get out of. . I cannot stress how much I do not want that in this, haha.
However, there's nothing I would love more then having a 100vs100 open field charge with everyone on both side yelling out warcries in their charge before the clash. I'd also love people being able to yell out warcries & taunts before the charge - Think the ending scene of the movie ' 300 ' where they let out howls in the thousands. Maybe this is just me being a guy, but that gives such an adrenaline rush to want to crush an enemy to a pulp hearing my allies yelling out at their enemies taunts & blood curling yells.
Instruments of War
What I mean by this is, quite literally, instruments like drums, horns, or whatever instrument that could be used. We saw in a recent video an elf playing a guitar type thing, so that's sort of what sparked this idea for me. Basically, these are instruments or even items that can be used in AvA. You wouldn't have to, but you could make it to where a war horn of sorts gives bonuses to the allies around you in a specific range & have some sort of cooldown on use. That's not really the reason I want these Instruments of War though.
When you watch LOTR The Return Of The King, when the Rohirrim are just about to charge they all sound a ton of war horns. To me, that's absolutely amazing and I just. Want. That. Please give me an awesome warhorn to blow to sound a charge. Not to mention, you could also have things like war drums that people could use.
Just imagine it though, The Aldmeri Dominion & Ebonheart Pact duking it out in open field combat. To their surprise, the Daggerfall Covenant approaches over a hill to the west with the sun setting at their backs. A loud horn signals their approach then the sound of drums rumble as they form up to charge. The drums stop, then after a heart clamming pause, an accumulation of war horns are sounded once more as the mass of Daggerfall Covenant soldiers charge into the cluster. The Dominion & Pact then forced to stop their fight to hold off the Covenant or be destroyed.
Sure, maybe DC will want to just come in sneakily and show up to the fight, which is why I thought warhorns & drums could be items you get in AvA that give buffs to your morale or something of the sort. In turn it actually would add more to tactics. To either make your presence known & be buffed in your charge, or come in silently more to the enemies surprise.
Conclusion
The idea behind this is to make AvA feel like a war not only by sight but also sound. While I'm sure ZOS is doing a great job to implement the sounds of war already into their game, these are just some ideas I would be very thrilled to have in AvA.
