Custom Icons...?

[JG13_opcode]

Definitely a mission design problem.

 

20-minute transits to target and objectives spread across 40 different grids are not fun unless the server population is huge.

Edited July 12, 2016 by 13GIAP_opcode

[coconut]

I'm all for more options with icons, but I don't think that's what keeping new people away. I mean, try to think of it: You are new to the game, you want to play online a bit but you don't want to be overwhelmed with navigation, spotting, identifying planes... the current Icons ON setting achieves all that. Then maybe people don't stay because they have no stepping stone to Icons OFF, but that should not matter as far as population on Icons ON is concerned, assuming there was a constant in-flow of new players.

 

I think the explanation is somewhere else: The players flying regularly on the normal server are no noobs, there are good pilots there. New players get murdered. Especially if they fly Russian, because the F4 is dominating when perfect information is available. Trying to fly attackers or bombers and get your kills with ground targets won't work, because bombers get slaughtered even worse. They are easy to spot, can't run away, and seldom have escorts.

 

I tried doing a mission where bombers and attackers had no icons on them (it can be done, just name the plane NOICON in the planes airfield panel). It never had more than 4 people online at the same time, sadly. I'll do a new attempt this autumn, but it's hard to get the server's population jump-started.

[JG5_Schuck]

Well for what its worth,

I play with no icons, no tech tips and the zoom function is not mapped to any key.....

I treat IL2 as a Flight Simulator with a bit of combat thrown in for good measure   .

And that's just the way I like it.

 

Each to their own,

More choice can only be a better thing (in my opinion) and allow the game to appeal to both the novice and experienced 'pilots' a like.

[KaC_Furias]

perhaps a solution is simply to improve existing icons without necessarily having to create a new category.

[=69.GIAP=RADKO]

You know what would settle this for both camps? If it was just easy to get a visualisation on bogies. I think that would please the majority of both camps. Trying to spot targets is hard enough but I really think we would all benefit from a black dot (variable in size dependant on aircraft, fights/bombers etc) system at long distances.

Edited July 12, 2016 by =69.GIAP=RADKO

[FS_Fenice_1965]

The players flying regularly on the normal server are no noobs, there are good pilots there.

 

This is a great truth ands lead to another thought.

Between those flying occasionally there are a lot of serious pilots who aren't in love with full icons servers and also aren't in love with full real servers.

The problem of this sim is not only about attracting newbies.

The problem is about attracting old IL2 players. Wasn't this the reason why this sim holds the IL2 brand ?

Old IL2 players are mainly veterans, but not all veterans are for full real servers. Probably the mayority aren't.

This group of players still hasn't a valid home in the multiplayer scenario IMHO.

Edited July 12, 2016 by FS_Fenice_1965

[Aap]

I think the explanation is somewhere else: The players flying regularly on the normal server are no noobs, there are good pilots there. New players get murdered.

 

I agree that this could have a big impact on scaring away new pilots. However I think that even bigger impact, compared to the old IL2, is the fact that back then there was no War Thunder available. So most of that type of players that used to fly with full icons or without cockpit back then are probably using War Thunder nowodays. They can get lots of planes for free and start to play arcade style with other noobs, then later on can move on to War Thunder "Simulator mode" and only after that, if they still want more simulation, could be willing to cash out $50-$80 to get 8 or 10 planes here. And it is easy to pick up War Thunder as the first choice with all the ads that they see while surfing online.

Edited July 12, 2016 by II./JG77_Kemp

[FS_Fenice_1965]

Expecially if BOS servers are almost empty.

If there's no community to link there's no chances they get here.

This is why it is important to attract the old IL2 player base. There are thousands of players who have played for ages IL2. I am not exaggerating: anyone admining one of the leading servers of the IL2 era can confirm this, a look to the number of players recorded by FBDJ stats each month on each server is enough.

Those Pilots are veterans and it is unlikely that they are going to be satisfied by War Thunder.

They should have been the snowball to attract more players to this sim.

The real thing is that this sim has failed til now to be recognized as the IL2 successor.

I apologize if I have been too much crude.

Edited July 12, 2016 by FS_Fenice_1965

[Dakpilot]

Am I wrong in also saying that a lot of people in the popular  'golden age' of IL-2 also played on Wonder Woman view servers?

 

I do not remember the figures

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[FS_Fenice_1965]

You are right Dakpilot, but thousands and I mean thousands were playing on full real servers.

If someone had looked at the monthly entries of the Stats of spits vs 109 for example, he had seen recorded that amount of players.

Valor, with intermediate settings had more tha 4000 different entries/month.

The difference with actual situation is so striking that cannot be ignored.

Edited July 12, 2016 by FS_Fenice_1965

[ShamrockOneFive]

Am I wrong in also saying that a lot of people in the popular  'golden age' of IL-2 also played on Wonder Woman view servers?

 

I do not remember the figures

 

Cheers Dakpilot

 

I did. It was a great way to get into the multiplayer. I played on the harder difficulty servers only later on once I was more accustomed to the online format.

[SharpeXB]

The players flying regularly on the normal server are no noobs, there are good pilots there. New players get murdered. Especially if they fly Russian, because the F4 is dominating when perfect information is available. Trying to fly attackers or bombers and get your kills with ground targets won't work, because bombers get slaughtered even worse. They are easy to spot, can't run away, and seldom have escorts.

See that's what's ridiculous playing with icons on. The strongest plane will just dominate the game and if you aren't flying it you'll just die. Imagine flying around in a 109F4 with perfect guaranteed situational awareness of every plane within 10km of you.

I know everyone here has read accounts of what real air combat and tactics are like. Icons aren't it. Perhaps that's why hardly anyone uses them online.

 

Then maybe people don't stay because they have no stepping stone to Icons OFF

There really is no stepping stone that will help. Put any little colored dot on the screen and your eye is instantly drawn to it and you can't see anything else. Just turn them off. You'll notice the subtle differences between silhouettes and gain the ability of genuine situational awareness. Any form of icon just becomes a crutch. Edited July 13, 2016 by SharpeXB

[Aap]

 

 

See that's what's ridiculous playing with icons on. The strongest plane will just dominate the game and if you aren't flying it you'll just die. Imagine flying around in a 109F4 with perfect guaranteed situational awareness of every plane within 10km of you.

 

You realize of course that in this topic it was suggested to have reduced icon ranges, so not talking about "perfect guaranteed situational awareness of every plane within 10km", but distances like a grey icon becoming visible in around 2 km and more detailed icon in 700 m? And I am not so sure that Bf109F4 would be a dominant plane with new players, with their natural instinct of getting into turn fights and ending up fighting on the deck. 

[1Sascha]

About the Icon/no Icon options my humble opinion is that recognising planes in real life is much easier than in simulations. The third dimensions, the light and the reflections are totally different. Full icons ruin immersion, but minimal icons at shortest distances are a good trade and probably - in my opinion - they make the combat experience more similar to what is expected from real than full real itself. During dogfights at short distance the nucleus of the experience is on manouvering the plane and finding a way to kill, rather than wasting 90% of the concentration to find a way to spot the plane emergin from ground (textures).

Comes to my mind the words of Geoff Crammond (for those who do not know Crammond was the creator of Formula1 Grand Prix one of the racing sims that were so ahead of their times that are now part of the sim history). He substained that during a race a pilot is not mainly concentrated on keeping the car on the track. This is rather automatic. The nucleus of the esperience is on the racing tactics, the best traiectories, the position of the adversaries.....in a word: the race itself.

Same happens in planes combat. The nucleus of the experience should be the combat.

At largest distances - always in my humble opinion - no icons is the best solution. It is normal having difficulties spotting planes at distance and seeing full icons at 9 kms distance kills immersion and eliminate the possibility of killing without being seen.

Probably situation is going to change with development of graphics and rendering techniques, but actually we need to overcome actual limitations.

 

That.

 

Another point would be the fact that in RL, the human eye is very good at detecting things that "don't fit" (for lack of a better term) or look artificial/man-made. Hence the "uncanny valley"-effect in movies for example. And a man-made object such as a tank or an airplane (in RL) will always stand out from a landscape or the sky. In a computer-game, the landscape/natural world and the objects populating it are "of the same world" (so to speak), which can make detecting them unrealistically hard.

 

Say, a tank in a computer game is hiding in a bush or a treeline. That tank and those bushes are both simulated objects, whereas in real life one is an "artificial" object and the other is part of the natural world.

 

Plus there's the lack of three dimensional vision and the fact that BoS already has a super-unrealistic feature in the shape of the "bionic eyes". Last I checked, I couldn't simply zoom in on far-away objects in real life the way I can in the game.

 

And as someone above me pointed out: Please re-read my suggestions in the original post and note what was *actually* suggested:

 

1. Highly reduced initial detection-range (grey icon range).

2. Highly reduced color/ID range

3. Elimination of the arcade-style pointers

4. Elimination of the ability to track icons through objects blocking your LOS.

 

I also suggested the inclusion of icons that would fade out (no matter how close/distant they are) once the player loses them from sight for too long, making "re-acquisition" of that plane necessary before getting that plane's icon again.

 

And BTW: I wasn't even thinking about multiplayer when I wrote my original post.

 

Ideally, we should be able to adjust the first two icon-parameters as we see fit, to any range between the current "no icons"- and "icons on"-settings. If that's not to be due to gameplay-/game-design-issues, at least give us an intermediate preset with greatly reduced grey/color range and without pointers or the ability to track icons that are blocked by other objects.

 

 

S.

Edited July 13, 2016 by 1Sascha

[wtornado]

I don't think any of this matters anymore all the old IL-2 pilots tagged this new game as ''don't touch it with a ten foot pole''.

 

The old IL-2 pilots that want to play this  that bought this game are here forget about the rest.

 

If you do use icons use it for the new crowd coming the old IL-2 pilots will not come after Clod and now this in over 5 years of of playing

[BraveSirRobin]

We're DOOMED!!!!!

[SharpeXB]

I don't think any of this matters anymore all the old IL-2 pilots tagged this new game as ''don't touch it with a ten foot pole''.

 

There seem to be plenty of old IL-2 players here.

And don't overestimate the number of old players.

There are vastly more potential new players out there than old ones.

There is a certain segment out there who will never be satisfied by anything so there's really no point in trying to placate them.

Trying to satisfy the insatiable is what put Maddox out of business.

Edited July 14, 2016 by SharpeXB

[wtornado]

By 2004 IL-2 IL-2 the old game had 1,200,000 copies sold in Russia and abroad.

 

God knows how many copies have been sold up until today.

 

I have all of the original CD copies and DVD copies of IL-2 from the first one in 2001

to IL-1946.

 

There must be tens of millions of copies sold of the old game.

 

Maddox satisfied a lot of players until the game code was illegally cracked and mods

started to appear and the mods got bigger and bigger.

 

Maddox gave up on the cracked ,hacked game before full mods because he had no more control.

[Sokol1]

4. Elimination of the ability to track icons through objects blocking your LOS.

 

This track ability is standard in today games, in some you see the silhouette of enemy - troops or vehicles - highlight in red, through the terrain.

 

 

coconut, on 12 Jul 2016 - 17:04, said:

The players flying regularly on the normal server are no noobs, there are good pilots there. New players get murdered. Especially if they fly Russian, because the F4 is dominating when perfect information is available. Trying to fly attackers or bombers and get your kills with ground targets won't work, because bombers get slaughtered even worse. They are easy to spot, can't run away, and seldom have escorts.

 

And with the "advantage" that there - in NORMAL with all colorful icons/labels - the noobs will be detect at far ranges and be chased util his dead without chance to get out of the enemy's vision.   

 

Icons/labels is good for COOP against AI.

 

BTW - Look how even the BF's (  ) looks better - for play - without icons/labels/HUD's:

 

Edited July 14, 2016 by Sokol1

[SharpeXB]

By 2004 IL-2 IL-2 the old game had 1,200,000 copies sold

 

That player base sure didn't help Cliffs of Dover, did it? All they did was demand so much out of the game that it went bankrupt. But they didn't buy it.

 

There's something like 155 million people in the US who play video games. The old IL-2 base is just a tiny fraction of potential buyers.

Edited July 15, 2016 by SharpeXB

[ACG_daffy_]

That player base sure didn't help Cliffs of Dover, did it? All they did was demand so much out of the game that it went bankrupt. But they didn't buy it.

 

There's something like 155 million people in the US who play video games. The old IL-2 base is just a tiny fraction of potential buyers.

CLoD was a flop...initially, and that 'demand', and 'didn't help' stuff went BOTH ways!  lol.  If you were around then, you know very well how all of that went down, and frankly, it's probably a huge reason that many of the old guys just aren't here yet.  Burned twice already.  Not saying BOS is bad, but it's not the old IL2 with variety and options.  It's prettier, but that's about it.

I go back to WarBirds, CFS, and IL2 and each of the chapters in all of them.  I play CLoD now which is really good since the fixes and updates, and will never delete my IL2 or CFS stuff.

If this game wants to go anywhere, then it needs more variety, more theater options, and an open server/client system like Hyperlobby.  The more servers (rooms), with variety of options and levels the better!  People will migrate.  Yeah, the Expert guys are going to loose some of their easy targets, and their going to have some boring nights flying alone...but the other rooms would fill and there would be squadrons and then battles, and then chat room crap talk, then pulling punk cards, and then etc....It would bring some of the excitement back into it, and I think that many of the old IL2'ers out there/here would jump online more.  Right now, it's kind of boring.  I really like the game, and think the devs are talented and do this labor of love.  I admire the work and happily support it, but I took a few months off...completely...even uninstalled it and then came back, fresh....and nothing had changed.  A few updates, but the same maps.  Same plane set.  Same quiet servers on MP.  Somethings gotta give if more players are wanted...or we have to accept that it's a niche game, and this is about as far as it's going to go, and be happy with that.  If we want more attention in MP....then we gotta open up the variety options.  

[SharpeXB]

CLoD was a flop...initially, and that 'demand', and 'didn't help' stuff went BOTH ways!  lol.  If you were around then, you know very well how all of that went down,

 

I bought CoD for $49 even though I knew it had troubles. The game wasn't going to be fixed by everyone sitting on the sidelines and complaining. If you want to help a game achieve something. Buy it.

[wtornado]

CLoD was a flop...initially, and that 'demand', and 'didn't help' stuff went BOTH ways!  lol.  If you were around then, you know very well how all of that went down, and frankly, it's probably a huge reason that many of the old guys just aren't here yet.  Burned twice already.  Not saying BOS is bad, but it's not the old IL2 with variety and options.  It's prettier, but that's about it.

I go back to WarBirds, CFS, and IL2 and each of the chapters in all of them.  I play CLoD now which is really good since the fixes and updates, and will never delete my IL2 or CFS stuff.

If this game wants to go anywhere, then it needs more variety, more theater options, and an open server/client system like Hyperlobby.  The more servers (rooms), with variety of options and levels the better!  People will migrate.  Yeah, the Expert guys are going to loose some of their easy targets, and their going to have some boring nights flying alone...but the other rooms would fill and there would be squadrons and then battles, and then chat room crap talk, then pulling punk cards, and then etc....It would bring some of the excitement back into it, and I think that many of the old IL2'ers out there/here would jump online more.  Right now, it's kind of boring.  I really like the game, and think the devs are talented and do this labor of love.  I admire the work and happily support it, but I took a few months off...completely...even uninstalled it and then came back, fresh....and nothing had changed.  A few updates, but the same maps.  Same plane set.  Same quiet servers on MP.  Somethings gotta give if more players are wanted...or we have to accept that it's a niche game, and this is about as far as it's going to go, and be happy with that.  If we want more attention in MP....then we gotta open up the variety options.  

That is about right.

 

The old IL-2 series was like oranges.

 

The devs can keep on putting up Apple stands and sell apples.

 

The parking is empty after a while.

 

That player base sure didn't help Cliffs of Dover, did it? All they did was demand so much out of the game that it went bankrupt. But they didn't buy it.

 

There's something like 155 million people in the US who play video games. The old IL-2 base is just a tiny fraction of potential buyers.

Lucky they have a Wall Street like system and have lots of cash to continue their labour of love.

 

Many want oranges and they keep on selling apples I can't put all this simpler than that.

[No601_Swallow]

 

Many want oranges and they keep on selling apples I can't put all this simpler than that.

 

Tastes like oranges to me. It's a more or less high fidelity WWII sim, which works beatifully, while adding to the formula. I remember IL2 before FB. Almost all the "criticisms" of a restricted plane set and lack of playable maps could be levelled at that, to a greater or lesser extent. I have confidence that what we have now is the beginning (the end of the beginning?  ) of a process that I'm excited to be following.

[SharpeXB]

Many want oranges and they keep on selling apples I can't put all this simpler than that.

How do you yourself know what customers want? I'm sure 1CGS has a better understanding of that and also how to balance the costs and benefits involved.

 

The "wants" that this community sometimes asks of developers would break their bank. Like it did to CoD. Nobody wants a repeat of that.

[ACG_daffy_]

How do you yourself know what customers want? I'm sure 1CGS has a better understanding of that and also how to balance the costs and benefits involved.

 

The "wants" that this community sometimes asks of developers would break their bank. Like it did to CoD. Nobody wants a repeat of that.

I'm not sure that there's an analogy to be made here, between CLoD and BOS.  Really, the circumstances are very different.  CLoD was a lot of promises, patience, money and preparation....for a game that was not ready to be played.  BOS was done well, and aside from a handful of common issues, was pretty much as advertised.  I believe that suggesting that we don't want another CLoD repeat 'here', is a non-starter.  Two different scenario's.  People are suggesting to add-on to an already pretty good game, as opposed to spending 50 bucks, waiting and waiting, reading and reading, waiting and waiting, reading and reading, waiting and waiting......until finally the game arrived and was unplayable!!  lol 

[JG13_opcode]

But they didn't buy it.

  That's because Cliffs of Dover was really, really bad.  It was a thoroughly awful product, compounded by abysmal communication from the developers who seemed like they were trying to conceal things like Oleg's departure and their lack of progress from the customers. One of the few games I actually regret purchasing.

I bought CoD for $49 even though I knew it had troubles. The game wasn't going to be fixed by everyone sitting on the sidelines and complaining. If you want to help a game achieve something. Buy it.

 This attitude is why companies are doing Day-1 DLC with content that's already on the disc.  Nickel-and-diming you for things that ought to have been in the original product.  Would you go to a restaurant with bad-tasting food or a filthy kitchen because the owner needs money to make it better?

Edited July 15, 2016 by 13GIAP_opcode

[SharpeXB]

So I'm lost now in this discussion. Wasn't it about icons?

So what you're all saying is that there's this vast untapped 1.2 million buyers out there who would all flood into BoS if it only had different icons or whatever feature some old game from 15 years ago had.... Gee if only it were that simple.

[wtornado]

I was hoping on getting the new map and goodies with CLoD but the guys are not finished and it is understandable that it is a hobby

for them and they are doing it all on their spare time.

 

I hope it is a big North Africa map with all the goodies that go with it.<

 

 

Forget about icons for those who want it it is not coming it it would of already be here after 3 years.

[SharpeXB]

The trouble with getting addicted to game-specific features like screen graphics is that they will inevitably be different between games. None can ever be exactly alike. Unless you just switch them off and then they are. Every flight sim's icons look the same when they're turned off. Problem solved.

Edited July 16, 2016 by SharpeXB

[Muddy]

Well, it would seem to me that MOST of the responses were positive for some tinkering with the Icon/label settings. Whether it be size,colour, brightness or how far away they appear. And I too agree as an offline player I like to have the option available to me and think I would be more drawn to online if the conditions were right? As it is they are too much and too busy, I did like the way they were in Hyperloby when they became more refined.

 

As for the naysayers, i understand your point as the advances in tech are brilliant in this game however IRL the fighter jocks had to have near perfect vision and were 20 years old,,, not 40 with corrective lenses looking at best possible resalotion on a 17 laptop (in some cases) trying to distinguish a pixel from a tree or an airplane ,,,

[Cloyd]

I agree with SharpeXB. A GUI like this, controlled server-side or offline, would destroy the current online "community", BOS / BOM and any subsequent releases, and flight simming in general:

 

 

 

[No601_Swallow]

I agree with SharpeXB. A GUI like this, controlled server-side or offline, would destroy the current online "community", BOS / BOM and any subsequent releases, and flight simming in general:

 

 

Cloyd, do me a favour, will you, and tell me who you think this "community" is. 

 

There is no obligation on any online player to turn up to "official" maps and servers, because - as far as I know - there are no official maps. There are groups and mission builders who host, some of whom - I think - have even had help and advice from the devs, but there's no set bunch of servers. Just as in CloD, anyone at all can set up a server and host a mission. Anyone at all can open that mission to the public.

 

And, once again, surprise, surprise, there are loads of different groups (at least I'm assuming other squadrons do what we do) who build, host and fly missions on password protected servers, because that's how we want to play the game. For all of us, who do more than simply jump in to DED and then fly to where the nearest furball is, greater choice in icons (and a load of other aspects of the game) can only be good news.

 

One of my abiding regrets about CloD (and a key indictment of the ongoing state of that game) is that many online CloDDers seem to think that playing CloD online means (or meant) logging in to the ATAG server (or latterly the SoW server) as if only ATAG or SoW were capable of producing missions for online play. I'd hate of something similar to develop here.

Edited July 16, 2016 by No601_Swallow

[BlitzPig_EL]

Swallow, I think you misinterpreted Cloyd"s sarcasm.

 

I don't think he is siding with SharpeXB at all.

[Cloyd]

Yes El, I thought the sarcasm was obvious. Maybe more wacko smilies next time?

[BlitzPig_EL]

[SharpeXB]

The reality is that nobody uses icons online in any of the flight sims today so I'm not sure what having options for them would add. Multiplayer and the Campaign are the only game modes where difficulty is enforced, otherwise in SP you can just switch them on and off at will by pressing "H"

All the populated servers in these games are running icons off. If there were all these icon choices, players wouldn't be able to agree on which to use so they'd all do what they do now which is the easiest thing to all agree on. Off

[BlitzPig_EL]

With server populations that low, across all three sims, your point is meaningless.

 

The only people playing are the hard core survivors of a dying genre.

 

And it's dying because the hard core "my way or the highway" types drove everyone else off.

[SharpeXB]

Nobody's driven off. It's possible to create a server with any settings desired. If somebody wants to create a server running icons they can do that.
But the type of player who prefers to play with a big red "shoot me" tag on their plane is over on War Thunder.

Edited July 17, 2016 by SharpeXB

[No601_Swallow]

Yes El, I thought the sarcasm was obvious. Maybe more wacko smilies next time?

 

         

 

[buggerit! I thought my sarco-antennae were second to none. Apologies all. Heading back to the bunker now...  ]

Edited July 17, 2016 by No601_Swallow