I’ve been playing blind characters on TG and now Bee for kicks. On TG your “sight” distance is the same, however you can see floating text above people’s heads when they talk.
Notice, you can see the text in the chat window normally if you’re in hearing range (you’re blind not deaf). But this is orders of magnitude more difficult to follow.
TG also shows footsteps if they’re hearable (they show up as white feet in the blackness) but the text thing to me sounds like it might be an easy change.