Re: Designing an Audio FPS
I decided to break this up into two posts as it was getting long. Sorry
Most audio FPS's don't take enough advantage of vertical platforms, you can jump to go faster or avoid bullets which just gets spammed and feels really unrealistic, people can easily become overpowered if they are on the server before you and have collected lots of items or buffs and simply moving to another server isn't much of an option for such a small playerbase.
aiming is very easy because weapons aren't effected by recoil for automatic weapons (accept in Rode to Rage where your aim will move back and forth randomly more depending on the weapon) and except for Swamp (which is more PVE anyway) using a scope doesn't shift your point of view or allow for smaller adjustments.
The maps tend to be big and open without much to do, cover isn't really implemented properly because it's hard to tell at a distance that your bullet hit a barrier rather than simply missing and bullet impact sounds are often omitted because coders can't seem to make them not lag the server horribly especially at a distance or with a high rate of fire.
Speaking of high rate of fire Rode to Rage is the only game that was able to do it, no other has done so without causing horrible lag or slowing the firing rate down so much that it isn't really automatic any more.
Griefers are a problem because of the small community size which is why I suggested awarding experience (if implemented) based on the experience of the person you killed. Most of our coders are also not very well practiced so they make balancing mistakes and then add new features rather than fixing or truly testing their fixes, things like health caps, ammo caps, inventory limits ETC.
Sometimes they don't even create a simple system where the further from the center of the hitbox your shot is, the less damage the other player takes.
Using unnatural key combos, not supporting mouse or controller, and inconsistent degree and coordinate increments when turning or walking (turning left once will move you 3 degrees but turning right once will move you 2) make aiming and fitting in small spaces difficult.
Basically I think allot of it comes down to immaturity and a lack of knowledge of practical mainstream FPS concepts.
Anyway for cover I would just make it so that if you hide behind an object like a wall, you'll hear the muffled impacts from bullets on the other side and vice versa, but if you don't take enough steps in a certain period of time you should start making noises for the other player to hear if they get close to you, such as a quiet indicator on their HUD or a heartbeat/breathing sound at your position.
This assumes you aren't already going to create a directional or non directional proximity alert for closer ranges anyway, since in that case the issue would take care of it's self.
Destructible cover could also be done, if you had the bullets make terrain damage sounds that got louder as the barrier got weaker until it finally broke (resetting the barriers could be done on a timer or only on map reload).
Semi height cover could be done as well, just make it so that a player can only use it when crouched in the tile adjacent to a semi cover tile. You could make this crouching action have a cooldown timer until it can be used again, and an automatic time limit before the player must stand up so that it isn't easily abused.
Now I'm just brainstorming of course, I don't know how hard any of this would be to code with your engine limitations, skill level, current implementations ETC, but hopefully some form of these types of things can make it into a final product. If not, I think that better balance, less lag, basic vertical aiming, better maps, and mouse support alone would still make your game a hit even if it's offline.
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