Helmet visor "dirty" overlay

Granted opening the visor changes the sounds, but that doesn't affect the player or game-play in the least. My suggestion is to add a very slight amount of interference, visually, when the visor is closed. To this, you mention there is some amount of screen gunk that is always visible. Although I've never noticed it, that's exactly what I'm talking about. As you noted, that screen gunk is always there, and my suggestion is to make it go away when the visor is open. Since you use Whiplash's screen-gunk remover script, this supports the notion that the screen gunk is enough of an irritant that players would want to open their visor most of the time when its an option. Which is perfect. All Keen needs to do, is tie the rendering of the gunk overlay to the boolean value that indicates if the visor is down. Since they apparently already do something similar for sounds, it's most likely only a few simple lines of code to implement. It would actually add to immersion and verisimilitude, not detract from it.

Yes, when in an airtight environment, the player can open their visor. But there's no reason to (that's the whole point of this suggestion). All Airtightness does (game-mechanic wise) is allow players to refill their oxygen without having to go to a medical bay or survival kit. So, no, this mechanic does not encourage players to open their visors. Most players close the visor, and it stays closed the entire game, regardless if they are in an airtight environment, in space, or on a planet with a breathable atmosphere.

- So as far as the screen gunk goes, you appear to have misunderstood what i said - you were suggesting in your original post that Keen add some marks/effects to the screen to indicate the visor is down, while i was stating that these marks already exist, and that it would be good if they removed these marks when the visor is up - this now appears to be your position too (it did not appear to be in the original post), but your reply indicated you seemed to think it was not mine as well.

- Secondly, your assertion that the differences to the sound environment with or without the visor closed don't affect the player or gameplay ("in the least") is a personal opinion - some people put value on immersion and realism (or verisimilitude if you prefer), and sound plays a significant role in that, and in my opinion the role it plays here is that the sound effects while the visor is closed are more muffled and potentially claustrophobic than when it is open, thus making it desirable to open the visor when possible.

- So really this is a disagreement with the premise that players have no reason to open their visor, while agreeing that it would be good to have clear visuals when the visor is open, but disagreeing on the need for additional visual effects to the screen when the visor is closed (but i am willing to concede that so long as the visuals are changed to clean when the visor is up that maybe some more indications that the visor is present could be fine if done well - with maybe an option to clean the smudges off), and also disagreeing that players can't know if their visor is up or down, since there are audio indications (and an icon on the HUD, but i concede that the HUD can be hidden).

- As a final point, you say "Most players close the visor, and it stays closed the entire game, regardless if they are in an airtight environment, in space, or on a planet with a breathable atmosphere." I am interested to know on what data you base this assertion.....

The point was "visor down -> have something on screen; visor up -> thing goes away" That there is already something there vs me suggesting to add something, is entirely irrelevant. I guess the server I play on uses a mod to remove it, so I didn't realize it was standard. The important part wasn't about adding something, it was about something being there for the purposes of indicating the visor state. Please don't focus on irrelevant details in an attempt to discredit my suggestion or delegitimize my justifications for the suggestion.

When I said there is no reason to open the visor, I was speaking as a game designer (with 20+ years game design, and 10+ years game development , and 7+ years enterprise UI/UX design) regarding game mechanics. There is no direct effect to the player's game to have the visor up or down. Changing the sounds is an RP device, but it doesn't affect actual game play. It doesn't change how anything actually works in the game, and it doesn't change the difficulty of actually doing anything in the game. Sound has zero effect on game play. I know this, because I frequently play with the game entirely muted, and on the occasions when I don't, there's literally no difference in anything in the game; I just hear stuff now. There is literally no game effect to having the visor open. However, impeded visibility does affect game play -- it can make long range targeting slightly harder, it can make finding distant objects more difficult, etc. (For such a tiny thing as the visor, the game play effect should be minor, but it should not be nothing.)

Additionally, this suggestion would increase immersion, just like the sound changing. So I'm not sure why you are here arguing against the idea and using "sounds adds to immersion" as your talking point. This literally adds nothing negative to the game. What it does, is allow the player's game play to be just a tad "nicer" when in an area where the visor can be opened, which is literally the exact reason an engineer would want to open their visor -- for unfettered vision and a breath of fresh air.

As far as my sources, I guess you don't watch any SE Youtube videos? Splitsie, WastedSpace, and Kanajashi have extensive libraries of tutorials (literally years' worth), machinima series's, and play-throughs. These are some of the more popular players, and Splitsie and WastedSpace frequently have guest players participate as well. Also, literally every player I've seen on the servers I moderate, as well as every SE tutorial video I've ever seen -- every player keeps their visor down all the time. Because there is never a reason to open it.

I feel like I have made my point. I don't care about persuading you to see things my way. The purpose of these forums is to present our ideas, then have comments so that people can present pros/cons/unintended consequences to the ideas. There's no need to attempt to undermine my perspectives and feedback. If you feel that there is an actual drawback to my suggestion, then you should write that instead of telling me why opinion isn't valid.

I was not attempting to undermine your feedback nor claim that your opinion wasn't valid. I was simply stating that i disagree with it and your suggested change, and explaining my reasons why. Since you were using your opinion as proof for the validity of your suggestion, it was necessary to discuss my disagreement with your opinion while discussing my disagreement with your suggested change. At no point did i suggest that you are not entitled to have your opinion, only that due to it being personal preference, it does not necessarily stand as factual evidence supporting the necessity for the change as you described it. I certainly wasn't suggesting that you throw your CV into the mix to somehow prove that your opinion is more valid.

Furthermore i was doing my best to keep the tone civil and the discussion constructive. I was also making no assumptions about which youtubers you watch - i am a fan of Splitsie's videos, but there are a multitude of reasons why his public videos are not necessarily indicative of regular play (especially with regard to sound and immersion), and furthermore a handful of youtubers is not a significant sample size, even if you were just watching them play twitch streams with no narration, instead of content where they are talking to eachother and the viewers, or narrating a tutorial, or a creative session, or have the background music playing. Hence why i asked for your survey parameters, and the response has clarified that there was possibly a lack of consideration of context for your assertion.

It appears that you seem to take offence with the very notion of me disagreeing with you. All of my comments were with regard to the suggestion you made and your follow up points - exactly the pro/con discussion of the idea that you seem to suggest i was not making. I only initially made a comment because i happened across your post and wanted to describe a negative aspect of adding more dirty marks to the screen, while agreeing that separating the screen overlay into a visor up and visor down could be good if the visor up was a true clear screen, rather than the dirty marks that we currently have. And i was also advocating for those who do currently use both visor up and visor down positions, and discussing the role that the realisic sound option plays in the game with regards to the visor. You are not the arbiter or what factors affect others' gameplay experience, and you were suggesting a change that would affect the visual aspect of having the visor closed (which is necessary in many situations and so making it dirtier than it is now is significant), while disregarding the effects that realistic sound might have for anyone other than yourself (and who would have an interest in whether the developers retain the current "smudged eyeballs" effect that is present with the visor up if they decide to make changes to this apect of the game - and whether it would be moddable etc).

I was attempting a good faith discussion of the issues (and initially just a statement of my opinion), since you were advocating that the developers make a change to the game which would affect me as well as you, and i have just as much right to discuss the pros and cons of any suggested change. The way that you have chosen to respond saddens me, and your suggestion that my motives for commenting were "an attempt to discredit [your] suggestion or delegitimize [your] justifications for the suggestion" or that i was attempting to "undermine [your] perspectives and feedback" and "telling [you] why [your] opinion isn't valid" is frankly insulting. Furthermore it is hypocrisy to state "The purpose of these forums is to present our ideas, then have comments so that people can present pros/cons/unintended consequences to the ideas", when you clearly have no respect for the right of others to state an opinion about the ideas that differs from yours. Clearly you are not interested in a good faith or civilized discussion, and simply believe yourself to be correct in what amounts to an almost entirely subjective position.

I now honestly wish i had simply left the idea to be ignored.