Icon's, Half way house

[HagarTheHorrible]

I was wondering, out loud, if there was room for a kind of half way house for Icon's in multiplayer ?

 

Obviously there is full real, with no Icon's, which provides a good challenge, locating targets and navigation and generally increasing the pilots workload considerable.  It's good fun but not for everyone, either complexity wise or time wise, it tends not to be the turn-em, burn-em  furball quick fix brigade.

 

The other option, often with other simplifications, allows for Icon's. the problem is it does very much mitigate against one of a pilots strongest cards which is the element of surprise.  Beginners often flock to these servers because they offer a simple, uncomplicated way to get into the skies, find and identify enemy and navigate around without too much effort and head scratching.  The problem is it also attracts better, more experienced pilots, even if  only slightly and sometimes much. 

 

The problem, as i see it, is that it exacerbates a rather off putting, seal clubbing mentality.  New pilots want a simple uncomplicated fix and head for the fray, more experienced pilots can then use the same aids to use their superior experience and skill, usually in their considered best aircraft, to club these Newbies into the ground, fairly secure in avoiding, if they so choose, to be surprised from the rear.  It really gives the more experienced pilot a huge advantage, that security of knowing the whereabouts, ranges and threats in the area.  Because of that lack of a surprise element it really mitigates against performance reducing weapon upgrades because the chances of getting into the correct position to be able to take advantage of them are far less.  Unless you're clubbing seals that is.

 

How about having an option that allows for icons but , crucially, you only see other aircraft with icons enabled.  Pilots turning them on and everyone else who has their icons turned on at the same time can also see you, pilots turning them off and it's back to heightened realism and the added element of uncertainty.  This allows for checking your location on the map, when you end up hopelessly lost and also possibly finding the fray.  Turning them on might give you an aid in finding and identifying enemies, or friends, but also makes you, at the same time vulnerable yourself.  It helps the newbies but also allows for an element of tactical surprise, sorely lacking in icon's enabled servers.

 

As a side note, because of a lack of mortality, it allows most players to target fixate, icon's exacerbate this fixation, because players can be far more certain of who, where and what is likely to threaten them, but even without icon's it's a departure from realistic combat and combat outcomes, allowing players to press home an advantage, inflicting far more damage than if they had to nip in quick and then worry about themselves.  This problem is particularly prevalent in icon's enabled servers and again goes against upgrading your aircraft for bear.  Why worry about inflicting critical damage in half a second when, because being bounced and killed isn't that big a deal, you can hang around for twenty seconds and spray away to your hearts content without a care in the world.  The thrill of victory is more important than survival.  I hate to suggest a possible time out from any online match if you die on an enabled server, maybe 5 minutes for a first death, 10 for every subsequent death or some such penalty, possibly a server adjustable penalty to set a level that seems reasonable for the type of game play and deters.  Mortality has an outcome. 

Edited May 4, 2017 by HagarTheHorrible

[Finkeren]

I would just like to have the option to tailor the way icons are displayed in the sim (as a difficulty setting ofc so it'd look the same for everyone on the server)

 

Specifically I'd really like to be able to turn off the arrows pointing to nearby aircraft outside your field of vision. This would greatly increase the value of situational awareness and the need for actually looking around. It would make it possible to actually sneak up on an unsuspecting player while still helping with spotting and aircraft ID.

[Warpig]

The only thing that bothers me about Expert, is forced map navigation. Would it be so bad to allow us to have our location on the map for navigation purposes in Expert? I would love to play in Expert all the time, but the forced navigation is so distracting.

 

Same with turning the icons on/off. I'd love to be able to turn the on screen gauges and enemy markers off at times (in single player mode) while on normal settings, but then my map icon disappears. Ahhhh! Frustrating.

 

There really needs to be options to turn the plane map icon only on/off. And I also don;t think that Expert should force navigation. I love this game for air combat and flight, but I never signed up for a map navigation sim. They are two completely different things.

Edited May 5, 2017 by Warpig

[beepee]

 

 

The only thing that bothers me about Expert, is forced map navigation. Would it be so bad to allow us to have our location on the map for navigation purposes in Expert? I would love to play in Expert all the time, but the forced navigation is so distracting. Same with turning the icons on/off. I'd love to be able to turn the on screen gauges and enemy markers off at times (in single player mode) while on normal settings, but then my map icon disappears. Ahhhh! Frustrating. There really needs to be options to turn the plane map icon only on/off. And I also don;t think that Expert should force navigation. I love this game for air combat and flight, but I never signed up for a map navigation sim. They are two completely different things.

 

There are a number of servers that have custom settings with your location turned on.

[Warpig]

There are a number of servers that have custom settings with your location turned on.

That's cool. I wish we could do that in the Campaigns though. So I can learn expert settings there.

[major_burns]

How did they do that?

[Scarecrow]

Tailoring the the icons so that they pop in at a user defined distance would be what I'd like to see done. I only really use icons for target identification and not for finding targets so if icons only popped in at 0.75km I'd be able to make sure I wasn't about to fire on a friendly without feeling like a fraud for using icons.

 

Of course I'd like to see a whole lot more customisation of the GUI and the ability to use custom difficulty options in the campaign rather than the all or nothing approach we still have as a hangover from the early days of Unlocks and XP.

[dburne]

 

Of course I'd like to see a whole lot more customisation of the GUI and the ability to use custom difficulty options in the campaign rather than the all or nothing approach we still have as a hangover from the early days of Unlocks and XP.

 

Customization of the difficulty in the campaign would be very nice for sure, perhaps that will be an ability included in the new upcoming career mode.

[JG27*AD]

Back in the IL2 1946 on-line heyday perhaps the most popular server was "War Clouds".  There were icons, however they were carefully set so as to reflect the distance a pilot in real life should be able to identify another aircraft.  I do not recall the distance that was the benchmark.  Lets say that in real life a pilot can identify aircraft type at 3000 meters.  The question was, in the sim, what distance did the aircraft render into that.

 

So on the WC forum, (darn, I cannot remember the owner of War Clouds, its been too long... )  ran a series of screenshots of aircraft at different rendered distances and asked commentators to post their identification estimate.   These became the values that icons appeared.   For friendly aircraft the pilot name showed, for enemies only the aircraft type.

 

Not sure how this would work out in the world of better graphics and VR,

 

Salute !!

AD

[VesseL]

I would just like to have the option to tailor the way icons are displayed in the sim (as a difficulty setting ofc so it'd look the same for everyone on the server)

 

Specifically I'd really like to be able to turn off the arrows pointing to nearby aircraft outside your field of vision. This would greatly increase the value of situational awareness and the need for actually looking around. It would make it possible to actually sneak up on an unsuspecting player while still helping with spotting and aircraft ID.

That would be great. Exactly what i would like to see happen. Then if the game engine can handle more complex options then we could have more complex settings for icons. Important topic, thanks Hagar.

[1./KG4_Blackwolf]

How did they do that?

I did it like this, Full real but with Map icons:

Only works in quick missions though. It would be nice to have more settings for the campaign.

Edited May 8, 2017 by 1./KG4_Blackwolf

[71st_AH_Mastiff]

H turns all off you need to press i to turn on again for map. Gps.