On the new visibility system

[LColony_Kong]

Yeah after this patch I had like 4 friends get back into the game JUST BECAUSE OF THE SPOTTING FIX. Now they dont want to play anymore, and we were selling the game hard to people who had been on the fence about it.

[=LD=Strat]

^ Exactly. I am confident they will re-introduce the scaling to some extent very soon. 

Edited October 4, 2019 by Strat

[US63_SpadLivesMatter]

9 minutes ago, Lord_Flashheart said:

Yeah after this patch I had like 4 friends get back into the game JUST BECAUSE OF THE SPOTTING FIX. Now they dont want to play anymore, and we were selling the game hard to people who had been on the fence about it.

 

Inability to spot is the number one thing keeping my friends from this game.  Not everybody has the high end hardware to make spotting not feel like a chore in this game.

 

One of them described the game as sitting in a seat staring out of the cockpit with binoculars most of the mission.

Edited October 3, 2019 by hrafnkolbrandr

[Dusty926]

1 hour ago, hrafnkolbrandr said:

 

Inability to spot is the number one thing keeping my friends from this game.  Not everybody has the high end hardware to make spotting not feel like a chore in this game.

 

One of them described the game as sitting in a seat staring out of the cockpit with binoculars most of the mission.

And that's exactly how I'd describe it in the old spotting system, and I thought it was all dandy with the patch. Now that the hotfix is out, however, it's back to the binocular game. It's not like it was THAT absurdly easy to spot before even; Planes that weren't glaring and were against clouds or the ground could be very difficult or impossible to see back on the patch, even with the mid-range scaling being a little off. Now, it's like there wasn't any patch at all, when it comes to spotting at least. 

 

I desperately hope they change it back, it was one of the things making the new stuff stick for me.

[JonRedcorn]

Please put the spotting back. Massive disappointment to see it basically completely reverted to pre patch.

[HansBlitz]

Sounds like there are a lot that need a trip to the eye doctor. Thought is was way way too easy to see things in the distance pre-patch. Like a flock of airliners or C5 galaxy over the target, seen from much too far away but I did spot aircraft very well before the update. I like the patch. I took about a 30 min flight earlier and it was harder but I believe I was seeing planes farther than I did pre-update and believe it shouldn't be so easy that its like having ICONs on.

[=SqSq=Sulaco]

Fingers crossed they work it out because the new spotting added a heap of atmosphere, almost felt like a new game. I imagine it will be a work in progress over time as there's a super fine line they're trying walk between realistic and playable. No easy task.

Edited October 4, 2019 by =SqSq=Sulaco

[peregrine7]

Awwwww cmon. It was a little too strong before but now it looks like no change from before. If 100% is spotting where it should be it's gone from 50% to 160% to 60%.  

This is devastating, glad I got one or two missions in to experience it. Now back to not playing

 

 

[JonRedcorn]

Well I had a hunch why they changed it, if you head over to the russian forum their update thread is filled with red flyer whiners begging for it to be changed closer to how it use to be, they don't want to be spotted while crawling on the deck in their pe-2s from so far away. So we can all thank the russian forum for this reversion in the spotting. Thanks so much guys.

[Panzerlang]

Thank the lord they fixed it, seeing planes turn smaller while zooming (in VR) was a total head-fk.

[Legioneod]

Just got in a few games after the hotfix, it does seem much harder to spot now. Almost like the spotting is back to 10km again.

Is it still possible to spot farther out? I havent had much luck since the hotfix.

Edited October 4, 2019 by Legioneod

[Feathered_IV]

I rarely ever use zoom, so I would have enjoyed keeping the updated settings as they were or something very like it.   

[SharpeXB]

51 minutes ago, J3Hetzer said:

Thank the lord they fixed it, seeing planes turn smaller while zooming (in VR) was a total head-fk.

I never got to try the pre hotfix. But the reverse zoom effect was there in CloD and it was awful. 

[RIPSkyKingTasmanaut]

pre hotfix was fantastic, if a little flawed. Some middle ground between that and what we have now would be acceptable. What we have now, after having experienced the fun of the previous few days, SUCKS. It's bad, and if you support it you should feel bad

[BraveSirRobin]

16 minutes ago, Tasmanaut said:

pre hotfix was fantastic, if a little flawed. Some middle ground between that and what we have now would be acceptable. What we have now, after having experienced the fun of the previous few days, SUCKS. It's bad, and if you support it you should feel bad

 

The only reason I support the hotfix change is because of the hissy fit that some people are having about it.  I don't feel bad about that at all.

[RIPSkyKingTasmanaut]

1 minute ago, BraveSirRobin said:

 

The only reason I support the hotfix change is because of the hissy fit that some people are having about it.  I don't feel bad about that at all.

so you get pleasure out of dozens of people being upset about something they enjoyed being removed, and potentially hundreds leaving the game again?

[BraveSirRobin]

4 minutes ago, Tasmanaut said:

so you get pleasure out of dozens of people being upset about something they enjoyed being removed, and potentially hundreds leaving the game again?

 

No, I get pleasure out of people treating this like it's the end of the world.  It's very funny.  

 

The extended spotting range is a new feature.  It's probably going to take some time to get it right.  Losing your sh!t over these changes (and that is absolutely what is happening) is a little odd.

[Hawk-2a]

13 minutes ago, Tasmanaut said:

so you get pleasure out of dozens of people being upset about something they enjoyed being removed, and potentially hundreds leaving the game again?

There were probably almost as many people upset about being seen from a ridiculous distance as there are guys who loved to finally see past 10k.

personally i did not like the visibility just after the big update. It was almost as if one would fly with icons on and equipped with a huge blinking arrow indicating „here I am“

Edited October 4, 2019 by =FC=SteelFalcon

[RIPSkyKingTasmanaut]

I am hugely confident I am in the strong majority that thought it was a step in the right direction, and this 'fix' a huge step back. Hugely confident

[Hawk-2a]

I get your point. As with all releases of any software, there is a point where it is ready to release, then you get some feedback, sometimes a bit less mature than one would hope, indicating that stuff needs to be adjusted. Then you adjust, get feedback if you nailed it or not quite yet, adjust more etc etc etc. Just relax, it‘s gonna get tweaked at least 1 more time. 

[Talon_]

Sad to see the game downgraded for so many users.

[RIPSkyKingTasmanaut]

on a more constructive note, there are 2 ways I think they can fix this.

1. Tweak it so that is is half way between what we had and what we have now.

 

2. put it back how it was, but adjust the scaling so that the 'big' shape stays 'big' when you zoom in, until you are within the distance that the scaling reduces. It was pretty odd that zooming actually reduced the size of plane, and I think many people complained about this. 

[Hawk-2a]

2 minutes ago, Tasmanaut said:

1. Tweak it so that is is half way between what we had and what we have now

See, that‘s it. A point to start. Would love a middle point of those 2 „extremes“ too.

[RedKestrel]

13 minutes ago, =FC=SteelFalcon said:

I get your point. As with all releases of any software, there is a point where it is ready to release, then you get some feedback, sometimes a bit less mature than one would hope, indicating that stuff needs to be adjusted. Then you adjust, get feedback if you nailed it or not quite yet, adjust more etc etc etc. Just relax, it‘s gonna get tweaked at least 1 more time. 

The first and only time I flew pre hot fix it was good, but the distant planes were too white and their overly large size was a bit jarring. It needed tweaking for sure. Probably went a bit too far back but at least there is no longer a hard rendering bubble. 

[=GEMINI=IngegnerTommy]

I believe a "middle ground" between the new system (pre-hotfix) and current status of things would make most users happy. 

Easier to spot that today's (and the last 3 years) but not as insane as the first two days of the week.

 

Compromise is good :)

[Panzerlang]

I don't think the complaints were about the view-distance, it was the reversed zoom glitch?

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

I think the current post-hotfix is very good.  I think that once you experience a variety of lighting conditions (weather, time of day, relative position of the sun) it should be apparent that while it is possible for planes to show beyond 20km, they don't always.  You might even find (again, depending on conditions) they might not be seen more than 10km away.  Discounting the flexibility of the lighting system as it is in this current state is, IMO, very short sighted.  Give it some time before you go poo-pooing the whole thing and screaming for immediate changes. 

1 minute ago, J3Hetzer said:

I don't think the complaints were about the view-distance, it was the reversed zoom glitch?

 

If sunlight reflects off of a rifle scope at a distance, the glint temporarily appears much larger than the scope lens could possibly be.  If you focus you eyes towards it, it may appear smaller.  

It's part of the way light reflects in many different directions.  You can try it with a small mirror placed far away in a place the sun will eventually hit it directly.  Are you sure it really was a glitch? 

[[DBS]Browning]

I also prefered things before the hotfix.

[Guest deleted@83466]

my 2 cents:

 

Bodenplatte release, visibility was over the top, exxagerated, the mind-bending inverse zoom stuff, and the awful Sam Launch looking effect from fuel leaks.  No way do I want that "put back" because it seemed sort of bogus.  On the other hand, post-Hotfix, visibility is still better than before, but maybe a little bit too much of a step back towards the pre-Bodenplatte, 10k-ish levels as far as aircraft spotting is concerned.  I think the sweet spot is somewhere in between.

Edited October 4, 2019 by SeaSerpent

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

Aircraft visibility in pre-update v3.102 was ~10km.  I'm not sure if the 100km visibility mentioned by devs applied to aircraft visibility in v3.201 but it was very far, maybe 50km.  IMO I thought it looked too far.  If I remember from readings, there were accounts of people seeing bogeys at altitude at ~20 miles (~32km).  This was someone who could see something that others in the flight could not.  How exactly they knew how far they were seeing is questionable.  No idea the view distance under v3.201b but it is much closer to v3.102.

 

I would think a visibility of aircraft of something like 25km would be a a compromise worth trying.

[TWC_Ace]

5 hours ago, Tasmanaut said:

on a more constructive note, there are 2 ways I think they can fix this.

1. Tweak it so that is is half way between what we had and what we have now.

 

I still cant believe they didnt go this way. Instead they just reverted to the old visibility. Or Im wrong? I didnt fly post hotfix.

Edited October 4, 2019 by =VARP=Tvrdi

[Hawk-2a]

12 minutes ago, =VARP=Tvrdi said:

 

I still can believe they didnt go this way. Instead they just reverted to the old visibility. Or Im wrong? I didnt fly post hotfix.

its‘s not as limited as before the big update, but does not seem that it‘s a lot further than the pre-bodenplatte version.

however, they now have an indication of what feels like too much and also what feels like too little.

So i guess it‘s gonna be adjusted again rather sooner than later, with a result somewhere between those 2 settings, which would seem to be just about the sweetspot and a value that the majority of players can live with well.

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by =FC=SteelFalcon

[CountZero]

Best would be to alow server hosts to select what ranges for contacts they wont, like it was in old il2 1946 or clod where you could go from 1-25km, and all players on server would have same settings server select as what they deamed as realistic. I dont know if that is posible here as system they use is mutch more advanced then just dots. 

29 minutes ago, VBF-12_Stick-95 said:

Aircraft visibility in pre-update v3.102 was ~10km.  I'm not sure if the 100km visibility mentioned by devs applied to aircraft visibility in v3.201 but it was very far, maybe 50km.  IMO I thought it looked too far.  If I remember from readings, there were accounts of people seeing bogeys at altitude at ~20 miles (~32km).  This was someone who could see something that others in the flight could not.  How exactly they knew how far they were seeing is questionable.  No idea the view distance under v3.201b but it is much closer to v3.102.

 

I would think a visibility of aircraft of something like 25km would be a a compromise worth trying.

+1

[Barnacles]

 

 

Here's what I did to test what to test the new visibility:

 

Started a quick mission with wingmen and other planes of various sizes. Paused the game and pressed F11 to move a free camera at various ranges and angles relative to the sun.

 

Here's what I noticed.

 

For a LaGG3 at 10k I could spot them easily, whatever the angle of the sun (rendered as multiple pixel objects, I could determine aspect, that they were single engine fighters but not classification)

 

15k is about the range they were just a small cluster maybe 3 or four pixels across and if they were against a low contrast part of the sky they would be very hard to spot, however if they were in high contrast they could be spotted (around 1-2 pixels) at 20+ k out to just below 40k)

 

I have quite a large television used as a monitor, so I can just make out single pixels. I imagine if you have a small area 4k monitor you would struggle to see a lot of contacts.

 

 

For what it's worth, I live 6 miles (10k) away from the airfield where the Red Arrows are based so I regularly see small fighters flying around at known ranges (yes I know they're red but it doesn't help spot them most of the time)

And the new ranges in the sim seem realistic *for me on my monitor*. Everyone's got different kit. Wouldn't it be simple for the Dev's if we didn't?

[Talisman]

On 10/2/2019 at 9:39 PM, SYN_Vander said:

I know, but I don't understand if the complaint is about seeing the planes too easily or not all...

 

Air-to-air spotting is worse than pre-patch.  Air-to-air spotting is harder than ever before in the history of the sim for me.  But I am working on it.  Also, I understand that it is all WIP.

 

P.S.  I use VR headset.

 

Happy landings,

 

Talisman

[JonRedcorn]

The whole issue I have with making spotting 100% realistic is that this is still a video game that we play online to have fun. We have compromises in many other aspects of the sim in regards to realism, yet with spotting for some reason we must have it 100% real. Maybe we need to think about playability a bit and remember not everyone is here with 20/20 hawk eye vision and the gifted ability to spot similarly shaded blue pixels out of a blue sky. The view distance rendering settings are not gone, stuff is still rendered at great distance there's no wall at 10km anymore, but the "Scaling" is fully dialed back to pretty much how it was. They made an entirely new scaling system only to completely shut it off it seems like. Think we are going to have to figure out a compromise between the 100% realism crowd and the we still wanna have some fun crowd.

 

I think it's also pretty clear there are a lot of people posting that do not regularly post on the forums and asking what is going on. That's a pretty clear indicator that the easier spotting was very welcomed by a lot of people myself included.. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

Edited October 4, 2019 by JonRedcorn

[JonRedcorn]

3 minutes ago, stalled said:

back to flying around for 30 mins without seeing any one then being shot from behind! great fun. thats progress

surely it would be in everyones interest to have more people playing the game thats better for everyone right?

i felt like i actually had a chance and it made the game better for it

Do not lose hope.

[JG700_Benek]

In my opinion the contacts needs to be more visible for one more reason and that is the ease of reaquiring your target. How many of us don't check six once they have a contact in sight due to being afraid to not find it agian?

 I think in real life where we dont have zoom it's way easier to predict where the object would be once you saw it for the first time. In game with zoom its way harder because either you try to look around without zooming out and then its hard to hit the right spot or you zoom out and then object movemen is perceived differntly and also you have problem finding target again. I think many people were happy before hotfix coz they were able to zoom out and quickly find target again. One remaining issue  was that when u zoomed in a bit the contact was less visible,.

 

For me the zoomed out contacts pre hotfix could be a bit smaller but mid zoom contacts should be bigger and darker until they are in range that close so we can see their colour .  The contacts silhoutte should be more solid like the shadows that since long time  are easier to spot than the planes. 

[SJ_Butcher]

11 hours ago, YIPPEE said:

Yeah after this patch I had like 4 friends get back into the game JUST BECAUSE OF THE SPOTTING FIX. Now they dont want to play anymore, and we were selling the game hard to people who had been on the fence about it.

I put in the the dust again until they fix that. Now I am back to other games lol

9 hours ago, JonRedcorn said:

Well I had a hunch why they changed it, if you head over to the russian forum their update thread is filled with red flyer whiners begging for it to be changed closer to how it use to be, they don't want to be spotted while crawling on the deck in their pe-2s from so far away. So we can all thank the russian forum for this reversion in the spotting. Thanks so much guys.

Well, they don't keep the game alive, we are as western market, if people start protesting with the wallet, things will change, bodenplate was my last tittle because I already have all the planes I like, now there is no motivation to keep paying anymore for me at least

[wellenbrecher]

3 hours ago, Mobile_BBQ said:

 

If sunlight reflects off of a rifle scope at a distance, the glint temporarily appears much larger than the scope lens could possibly be.  If you focus you eyes towards it, it may appear smaller.  

It's part of the way light reflects in many different directions.  You can try it with a small mirror placed far away in a place the sun will eventually hit it directly.  Are you sure it really was a glitch? 

Yes. Definitgely so. Why? Because you could literally have contacts pop in and out of existence based on how far you were zoomed in, my dear.

Have them pop in and out at will. As in visible at default view, you start zooming in for ID and they disappear. If you then did a reset back to default they would be right where they used to be.

Not normal behaviour, that.

Edited October 4, 2019 by wellenbrecher