Lights & tracers visibility in last patch- big step backward to arcade model

[Blakhart]

So... I must say one of the best things which was changed into realistic world war 2 enviroment was changing visibility of tracers and lights in the game.

It changed everything in gameplay and pushed more priority on gameplay and cooperation instead of very primitive way of identification/call for help and other arcade stuff which didnt had place in real engagements. 

Lights are NOT visible during the day like it was done in previous patch.
I`m talking about it as a pilot with more around 1800 flying hours.


@Jason_Williams & Devs gang, please bring back realistic aspect of lov visible lights. Let`s leave behind this arcade feature which never should be done in old il21946 and then was adopted by new born IL-2GB

Everyone who are supporting this idea please add own few cents here.

 

[Lypa]

Totally agree. Multiplayer gameplay became much more fun with this decreased navlights/tracers visibility. What's the point of sticking to this clearly unrealistic feature? 

Edited January 11, 2022 by =LG/F=Lypa

[=LG=Flogger]

Im totally agree with that. At war strobes doesnt exist .

"Star wars" tracers  are also too powerfull. 

Even today, nav,position lights which are use in aircrafts are not so visible like now and before patch.  

 

I know what im talking about in real

 

S!

[ITAF_Airone1989]

Agree.

I just hope they are doing a step back cause there was some problem, but that the idea for the future is to set them as much as realistic as possible

[[CPT]Crunch]

Except for flak batteries, you would think they would want very bright tracers to rapid track their intended targets.  Most of what you read of pilot accounts tell of knowing they're getting shot at, in game its like a graveyard now, until your hit you'll never even know your under fire.

[LukeFF]

Guys, c'mon, slow down. It's a temporary change:

 

1. Restored the visibility of navigational lights (now it is as it was before, but in the future, we plan to reduce it at long range);

[Gora_]

Agree! Now the game is much more one the arcade side ;( It has been for so long when the lights were so unrealistic. You have changed this in the last patch and suddenly all gameplay go totally in the direction of simulation. Battles were much more realistic and fun. Cooperation was the key. Flares became your best friend while in trouble. Why have you changed this!? If you want to work on this in the future leave it how it was yesterday. 

 

Or you did it for some beginners, but then it should turn on the icons to     C'mon guys just don't step back from the right decisions. 

If you have plans why you have changed it now? Was great. Now it is awful and totally unrealistic again. 

 

Besides why only "at long range"? Range is one factor but even more important is time of the day. At daylight they also shouldn't be visible. Maybe from 20 meters away.   

[AEthelraedUnraed]

28 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

Guys, c'mon, slow down. It's a temporary change:

 

1. Restored the visibility of navigational lights (now it is as it was before, but in the future, we plan to reduce it at long range);

Well said, LukeFF.

 

If the Devs went back to the old system again, there are probably some very good reasons for it. There's at least one bug I know of that was likely connected, namely the searchlights not working anymore. There may be many more bugs that I don't know of.

 

If there was no good reason to go back to the old navlight system, do you honestly think they'd have done so? The Devs have already said they'll improve the lights again in the future; let's leave it at that and show some restraint now, shall we?

[C6_lefuneste]

Light visibility should be an option for client and server.

[PB0_Roll]

A temporary fix while waiting the big rework could be:

 

9PM to 5AM= hi vis nav, tracers, projectors

 

5.01AM to 8.59 PM=low vis nav/tracers, broken projectors

[RossMarBow]

Personally I would like the smoke for tracers to be like engine smoke and visible from very far away
the colour of tracers maybe 2.5km?
nav lights maybe 1km?

flares need more smoke though 

[Drum]

Seeing tracers from any angle other then directly behind them is a Star Wars gimmick for lasers.

[=LG/A=LeNs]

I completely agree. 
That last, short-range visibility of lights changed the face of the game. Finally, flares were a tool that could be used, and I didn't feel like I was playing WingCommander.

[=[W-H]=Janus]

Totally agree.

[=[W-H]=Lucas_P]

I Completely agree ?

[JG4_Qetzalcoatl]

Agree too. The problem before the last hotfix wasn´t the tracers of the planes which were in my opinion just fine und realistic now. The big issue was the ground fire which tracers and especially the flak tracers were simply not visible and completely unrealistic. I asked a veteran soldier about it and he said flak tracers are visible in bright sunlight. I hope the plane tracers will be changed back but I am not sure if the plane tracers and the flak tracers are coded seperatly.

[kendo]

11 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Well said, LukeFF.

 

If the Devs went back to the old system again, there are probably some very good reasons for it. There's at least one bug I know of that was likely connected, namely the searchlights not working anymore. There may be many more bugs that I don't know of.

 

If there was no good reason to go back to the old navlight system, do you honestly think they'd have done so? The Devs have already said they'll improve the lights again in the future; let's leave it at that and show some restraint now, shall we?

 

I expect also that there is some good, though unspecified, reason for it. 

 

Speculation here - no evidence - but I'm wondering if it's related to the haze issue. Perhaps the excessive haze in last patch was an unforeseen consequence of their 'fix' to the navlights. So, to roll back on haze means (temporarily) losing the improved navlights visibility?

 

Whatever the reason they didn't roll back just to annoy people - or they wouldn't specify their intention to restore it in future. Something obviously didn't work right with it.

[Gora_]

13 minutes ago, kendo said:

Whatever the reason they didn't roll back just to annoy people - or they wouldn't specify their intention to restore it in future. Something obviously didn't work right with it.

I'm not so sure. I was playing all week long with the new "invisible" lights and everything was great. Maybe something under the hood? I don't know. Maybe Devs could tell us. But what is fact - If you give something to the people and it works for them it is hard to take it back...  

[III/JG52_Al-Azraq]

I completely agree, I just don't understand why 1C returned to the previous model which was unrealistic and easy to exploit. Now players will start using nav lights for locating allies and what is worse, to make it difficult to be identified as the extreme brightness will mask the plane silhouette. Also tracers are really exaggerated and they look bad showing thick lines that can be seen from miles away.

 

Really disappointed with this reversion.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

33 minutes ago, kendo said:

Speculation here - no evidence - but I'm wondering if it's related to the haze issue. Perhaps the excessive haze in last patch was an unforeseen consequence of their 'fix' to the navlights. So, to roll back on haze means (temporarily) losing the improved navlights visibility?

Speculation, indeed, but I came to the same conclusion. The haze fix is mentioned right next to the increased nav light and tracer visibility, sandwiched between that one and the searchlight bug, which I certainly suspect is related.

 

Whatever the case, there's no use in spamming a thread full of messages about how awful it is that the nav lights are back to how they were. Jason is usually pretty quick with closing threads like this; IMHO there hasn't been any thread lately that deserves to be closed as much as this one. The Devs rolled back a change, which is something Devs only do if something doesn't work properly, and have indicated that they'll fix it in the future. What more is there to be said?

[CountZero]

on russian forum update topic ppl complained constantly how visability of tracers is bad so my bet is thats why it got changed back, befor they do proper fix.  

Edited January 12, 2022 by CountZero

[Gora_]

10 minutes ago, CountZero said:

on russian forum update topic ppl complained constantly how visability of tracers is bad so my bet is thats why it got changed back, befor they do proper fix.  

This is what I was thinking of also. 

 

@AEthelraedUnraedevery discussion is ok if not offence somebody. It could lead to solve some problems. We - flight simmers, are small group of ppl and need relatively good communication between us and Devs. They mainly do great job with this title and we try to understand their decision here. Everybody makes mistakes. I do. Devs do also. Maybe something wasn't take into account? Your speculation is ok but instead of suggesting to close this thread would be better to wait for their official statement. The more people write about their feelings here the more Devs know what is going on. Nobody is insulting anybody.    

 

 

[Denum]

Considering it wasn't an intentional change we are going to have to wait until they have time to address it fully. 

 

The way I figure it someone with lights on is just food. 

[RyanR]

The developers have made it explicitly and implicitly clear that this is a work is progress. Lots of fairly substantial "rendering" projects are happening. Sometimes an improvement in one area completely hoses something else, which means reverting to older code for the "something else" until you can get that bug sorted for the next release.

 

-Ryan

[AEthelraedUnraed]

27 minutes ago, =LG/F=Gora_ said:

instead of suggesting to close this thread would be better to wait for their official statement. The more people write about their feelings here the more Devs know what is going on.

That's exactly my point [pulls hair]. The Devs have already made an official statement! They already stated that they reverted the change, and they already stated that they will implement it again in the future. Very obviously something did not work as intended. Very obviously the new navlights are not ready yet to be implemented. Very obviously they are already aware that it doesn't work properly since they mentioned it themselves. Very obviously all of this complaining is going to change absolutely nothing about that. What's so hard about all that to understand?

 

At least if Jason locks this thread, there'll be a high-visibiliy final post that repeats their statement that they will fix it in the future....

[kestrel79]

Relax guys they are working on it, said it was only a temporary fix in the notes. It will get better down the road. 

[Gora_]

I'm chill Just telling about my feelings and concerns. Like everybody here. @AEthelraedUnraed  I can see you want to be moderator here  Please don't tell Jason what to do. I'm sure he saw this thread and if he decide then he will close it. That's all. 

Edited January 13, 2022 by =LG/F=Gora_

[Ribbon]

I agree, even landing and taxi lights are not quite noticable IRL during the daylight, anti collision strobe lights too.

I'm glad it's on devs fix list, haze too!

Why so much drama about locking this thread, it's all valuable and polite feedback!

Forums are meant for that!

[No_Face]

7 hours ago, =LG/F=Gora_ said:

I'm not so sure. I was playing all week long with the new "invisible" lights and everything was great.

Not everything. Look at this video, then certainly there is the compression of the video software + the youtube compression but we see well that the light is not very visible, in particular that of the projectors supposed to light the track. It is only very close to the ground that we start to see that it illuminates it.

 

I put some screenshots, they may be less compressed:

 

 

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by No_Face

[Gora_]

I have to agree that landing light and the flak fire should be more visible. I barely flight at night, very few messions on multiplayer I play the most, but I find the nav lights to weak at night. The point is night missions are rare. But If Devs could tune nav lights, flak and plane tracers, landing light, haze in function of ambient light and distance that would be fantastic. Hope for it.    

[No_Face]

Yes. Personally, I trust them, so I'm not worried, I know that if they went back, it's to come back better. ?

[Noisemaker]

2 minutes ago, =LG/F=Gora_ said:

The point is night missions are rare.

I'm guessing you don't fly the U2/Po-2 much.

[Gora_]

A few times. Like it but only for fun... not MP.

[JG1_Vonrd]

I posted this in the 4.702 discussion thread:

Like many have said there is a likely glitch that required this change to the lights and it will likely be worked out "in the future". I am concerned about how long that timeline might be. In addition, there is no mention of changing the laser beam tracers "in the future" and I'm worried that they will remain as is. I, like others have said, consider them to be Arcade. 

It's not that I don't support the Devs... look at my avatar tags... I have purchased pretty much everything even if I'm not all that interested in some of the things. Being vocal about something that we care about is not a show of un-support... actually, it's the opposite. Being vocal seems to be one of the proven methods to get them to reply.

[-332FG-SGTSAUSAGE138]

I agree. While the nav lights are stated to be changed back "temporarily" the track record of this team means that could literally be years or close to a year. The tracers should not have been changed back either, the old tracers were just stupid. Could they change this too in the future? Absolutely, however the last two years have left a very bad taste in my mouth with this game which I love and continue to support, but cannot enjoy as much as I used to. If there are issues with the game FIX THEM instead of making more modules for the broke game. The new weather was done really well and I think its the best thing they've done for the game in a very long while, however I'd rather have the old clouds/weather in a combat flight sim with better FM/DM(for all planes), nav lights/tracers. 

[kendo]

Reading between the lines (and based on comments from Jason) it seems that a choice had to be made between rolling back the nav lights 'fix' or enduring with the haze issue.

 

Given the shit-storm of complaining over the haze, many would be 'disappointed' (myself included) if that had not been fixed.

 

So, a question to you - what would be your personal choice (if you can't have both right now) for which issue got fixed? Because that seems to be the reality here.

 

Some people need to get their heads around the concept that life is usually imperfect and full of compromises. 

 

 

Edited January 13, 2022 by kendo

[Gora_]

IMO haze is an atmospheric thing. You can use to it, but tracers like in StarWars and nav lights visible from 10km at day time is totally unrealistic. So my choice is clear. But if they can fix both these things, than ok, I will wait. Only rather to wait for haze fix with realistic lights.

Edited January 13, 2022 by =LG/F=Gora_

[Dornil]

Back in 1917 we could see them tracers from 2km up, at noon:)

[III/JG52_Otto_-I-]

On 1/11/2022 at 11:16 PM, =LG/F=Blakhrt said:

So... I must say one of the best things which was changed into realistic world war 2 enviroment was changing visibility of tracers and lights in the game.

It changed everything in gameplay and pushed more priority on gameplay and cooperation instead of very primitive way of identification/call for help and other arcade stuff which didnt had place in real engagements. 

Lights are NOT visible during the day like it was done in previous patch.
I`m talking about it as a pilot with more around 1800 flying hours.


@Jason_Williams & Devs gang, please bring back realistic aspect of lov visible lights. Let`s leave behind this arcade feature which never should be done in old il21946 and then was adopted by new born IL-2GB

Everyone who are supporting this idea please add own few cents here.

 

I´m agree but I suppose that in a future we will see in daylight the LANDING LIGHTS on of an airplane from a lot of miles, but NAV lights would not see, as in real life, unlike today occurs in game.
by the way, as far as i know, Luftwaffe typically used smoke tracers bullets were visible in daylight too.

Edited January 15, 2022 by III/JG52_Otto_-I-