Hi devs,
in GZ we have the enemy indicator as a game mechanics that supports players. Currently it is like a magical sixth sense with which you can feel enemies.
I thought there could be a better explanation for this indicator.
My idea is that it is a part of a disable machine.
To create an effective army of killing machines it is essencial that they can comunicate with each other and know where enemies are. So it would make sense that they have a modul that locates other machines in a certain radius and tells them whether they have located humans.
How about a scenario at the beginning of the game where a runner layes smached down under a car and can only move its head. Another runner got hit in its hydraulic system and its optic by a police man so that it can’t move and can’t see you but is not offline.
If you get to close too the runner under the car, it looks towards you and the second runner a few meters away also gets the siganl that there are humans near with a short delay. You can now go to the second runner and disassemble the comunication modul. It could be something like a compass that points in the direction of the closest other machine. The player could stick it on his watch and is able to see it while aiming (and as a help it also appears as now on the HUD).
It could be part of a mission so every new player will get it.
But we could also drop it to get a harder game. It could behave like the binocular that every 10th killed machine would have this module if you droped yours. As long as you have it there would be no module in the dead machines.
In other games similar objects exist and work like that. In Metro it is like amentioned a kind of watch and in COD it is a attachement to your weapon (I think it was called heartbeat sensor).
What do you think about that?