Add Audio Cues for Expiring Ward Spells

[Annex]

Hey.

Most players use various warding spells to protect their characters while questing--Blur, Death Ward, Displacement, Element Resistance, Nightshield, Protection from Element, Shield, and so forth. In many cases, these spells come from enchanted items or potions such that they have different time limits. As a result, the player needs to manage these warding spells, refreshing each one as it expires. At higher difficulty, failure to maintain a ward will invariably result in very tense moments or character death. Complicating matters, these warding spells often expire in the middle of combat such that the players fails to notice.

I suggest adding a new series of audio cues to the game that trigger when a warding spell expires. In essence, these cues move game information from the player's visual perception, which is often over tasked, and move it to his or her auditory perception, improving the ability of the player to monitor defensive wards. For example:

"Blur has expired."
"Death Ward has expired."
"Shield has expired."

Some players will not enjoy such a feature so I also suggest adding a new toggle to activate and deactivate these audio messages.

The game includes many wards and I do not suggest adding an audio cue for every single one, but perhaps the most important wards could receive audio ques when expiring.

Thank you for your consideration.

[Mindos]

I wanted a spot for dedicated but timed buffs that a player considers essential. For example, the third row beneath the buff bar. And I wanted to assign whatever spell I wanted. For example, give me 5 slots (or more) 3 rows down from the top of the screen. Let me decide if slot 1 is deathward, slot two is shield, etc. So I KNOW, at a glance, is deathward up? Look at position one! Meaning if I cast it or not, that spot is always reserved for the deathward timer.

But...

Word is there's a lot more resources lately so maybe...

[Annex]

I wanted a spot for dedicated but timed buffs that a player considers essential. For example, the third row beneath the buff bar. And I wanted to assign whatever spell I wanted. For example, give me 5 slots (or more) 3 rows down from the top of the screen. Let me decide if slot 1 is deathward, slot two is shield, etc. So I KNOW, at a glance, is deathward up? Look at position one! Meaning if I cast it or not, that spot is always reserved for the deathward timer.

But...

Word is there's a lot more resources lately so maybe...

Hey Mindos. That would also be very useful.

I would really like if the wards were listed something like:

[Death Ward] [Shield/Nightshield] (Deathblock] [Feather Fall] [Water Breathing] ... everything else.

I need to think about that some more but prioritizing Wards plus audio cues would really help with combat information management.

Come to think of it, having the Hit Point Bar over a character's head be bigger and a different color than every other hit point bar would also be useful.

[rabidfox]

[Death Ward] [Shield/Nightshield] (Deathblock] [Feather Fall] [Water Breathing] ... everything else.

I need to think about that some more but prioritizing Wards plus audio cues would really help with combat information management.

All of those buffs are on me for 20+ minutes and meaningless to me (even while leveling I don't worry about them) unless they get dispelled. Meanwhile, there's other short duration buffs like prayer, might's reward, etc. that I worry about falling off. The UI in general just needs more customization with support for visual & hearing impairments (adjustable audio and large visual notifications for things). Whenever the UI gets a 4k update (which could be ages), hopefully they also give us a bunch of other customized options at the same time.

[Memnir]

I wouldn't mind terribly if this were to be implemented.

[TheAlicornSage]

I love this idea, however, it wouLd be offputting if some voice just read aloud messages to us, unless it was our sentient weapon. Thus, I think the audio cues should be a sound effect of some sort rather than a voice, though adding such messages to a sentient weapon sounds nice, and in fact gives an extra reason to have sentient things other than weapons.