So currently finding exactly where the firefights are happening can be a bit of a chore using nothing but ear (more so for those with bad speakers or no hearing at all). Additionally, silencers have no real benefit; they're essentially cosmetic.
So what I propose is illustrated here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/29574227/Flash ... _alert.swf
As you can see, if you move your mouse to the edge of the Flash, it lights up. What I suggest is that a visual indicator of approximate enemy fire location be added to the game. It wouldn't be real accurate, just 4 or 8 points that the screen can light up slightly, allowing players to 'see' what their character should be able to hear, since playing it by ear isn't that reliable with video games.
Note that this only activates when a nearby sufficently, offscreen enemy fires, not when an enemy is nearby. It's not radar.

Now we come to silencers. With the addition of this mechanic, silenced weapons have a unique opportunity to be far more stealthy. With silencers, firing your weapon wouldn't light up enemy screens, allowing players to flank and kill the enemy without revealing their location.

tl;dr:

• Light up screen edge when enemy nearby fires weapon.
• Allows players to locate combat with more ease.
• Allows silenced weapons to be more useful by not lighting up screen edges.

My second suggestion is smoke grenades. These grenades would, as you may guess, release a cloud of non-damaging, opaque smoke upon detonation. This would block enemy players from seeing what is beneath the smoke.
As for AI behaviour, I suggest that any AI who were firing into where the smoke detonates would continue firing at the last known enemy point until they need to reload, but then not re-commence fire at things under the smoke. This would allow players to use smoke to cover movements, but it wouldn't allow them to use it to be immune to enemy fire.

As for how the grenades are used, I have the following suggestions:

• Add aan AR with underslung smoke launcher as either a counterpart to the AR with underslung frag launcher as detailed here. This would keep with the rule of twos.
• Add underslung smoke launchers without the frag launcher counterpart.
• Add an additional hand grenade type

.

Love the idea. :3 I hope this is going to be added in the game.

Silencers do serve a function right now. Every tried going solo against a group of enemies under the cover of darkness? They'll run around in panic, unable to find the source of the attack. Try doing that with any other weapon.

I like the smoke grenade idea, though I'd use them differently. For example, in Call of Duty multiplayer (the original CoD, with expansion pack) I always threw my smoke grenades AT the enemy position, which made their aiming impossible while we focused fire/advanced safely on their position. Coding the AI would be a bitch here, as the behaviour of friendly AI and enemy AI would have to be linked to both the position of the grenade and their current situation (pinned down, focused firing, flanking). You don't want to have your own units running off while you threw the grenade with the intent to advance instead.

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Moderator /u/Myrandall of the RWR subreddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/RunningWithRifles

The problem with suppressed weapons currently is that while the AI is programmed to react differently to them, a human player can hear it just as well. I think a simple solution that can be added right now is to remove the 'tracer' rounds from the MP5DS, as well as make the drop-off for the sound really short so you have to be almost next to it to hear it.

For the 'louder' guns I think that distant firefights should also sound differently, not only adding to the ambiance but allowing people to better judge how far they are from a firefight.

Smoke grenades are a bit more tricky. If fog of war was introduced, then it would simply create a smoke screen. Then any kind of smoke, either it be a burning building, smoke grenade, or even dust from firing or driving in arid regions would be able to block field of view. As it stand there is not fog of war, and the only thing that would be blocked would be the part the smoke has directly blocked from the overhead camera, so it's a bit trickier. Your position could be between the enemy and the smoke and you would still be able to see each other 'through' it because the way the camera works at the moment.

This means that putting smoke on enemy positions, as it stands, would just give them an advantage since they can see you out of it but you can't see them.

I do think that some kind of fog of war would be nice, it would enable players to act as recon and use stealth (hiding in bushes and such to mark enemy positions?). Being surprised by an enemy running around a corner would also be possible.

EDIT: Oh, right, the edges of the screen lighting up. I'm not sure if that should be for distant firefights, or for bullets passing close by. If you have a silenced weapon and shoot at someone without tracers, they will not know where they are being shot from since the screen won't light up.

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Ozymandias, King of kings, God of Caves, Wizard.