Today's patch added the entire shaders folder to IC, effectively blocking every quality of life mod that accessed that folder

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, Extranajero said:

Unless someone has got access to a time machine we'll never know what a piece of 1940's perspex is like to look through.

It doesn’t matter so much what this exactly looks like as long as every player is equal. 
If you thought the top speed of an aircraft was incorrect would that justify cheating in order to change it?

[motoadve]

The canopy glass mod was really good, was not a cheat, does not makes sense to get rid of it if in VR you can get your head out of the cockpit anyway!

What is realistic about going thru the canopy with your head?

Cleat canopy glass improved FPS and made planes looks more realistic, please we need to get it back.

[SharpeXB]

1 minute ago, motoadve said:

The canopy glass mod was really good, was not a cheat,

If it permits you to see more easily than your opponents can online. Yes, it’s cheating. 

[motoadve]

Just now, SharpeXB said:

If it permits you to see more easily than your opponents can online. Yes, it’s cheating. 

I use VR I can get my head out of the canopy and see better than my opponent, so that is also a cheat then.

MP are we making any money playing this game? to restrict the clarity of the glass? It is ridiculous,  its the difference between cleaning the windshield before a flight or not, is not that dramatic.

Canopy mod you could tune it to your liking, for a more realistic feel, in my case I had 0.6 some dull, not totally clear. 

[Mr. Big.Biggs]

Funny how everyone flip flops between “It as game and needs to be fair” and “it’s a study level sim, go play war thunder “. 
Everyone wants it their way…..

[SharpeXB]

5 hours ago, motoadve said:

I use VR I can get my head out of the canopy and see better than my opponent, so that is also a cheat then.

Yes. Other CFS games have a restriction for that. DCS should too. 

5 hours ago, motoadve said:

MP are we making any money playing this game?

Whether someone is playing a game for fun or not, nobody wants to play a rigged game. In this case it hurts the appeal of MP if you suspect your opponents is getting an unfair advantage. 

5 hours ago, Mr. Big.Biggs said:

Funny how everyone flip flops between “It as game and needs to be fair” and “it’s a study level sim, go play war thunder “. 
Everyone wants it their way…..

People are just trying to justify cheating the same way cheaters always have. 
1. I think the game is too hard or I think the rules are wrong so it’s ok if I cheat. 
2. The fact that cheating is possible means cheating must be ok. 
3. Everyone else must be cheating so cheating is ok. 
4. It’s my opponent’s fault for not being as smart as I am so cheating is ok. 

Edited May 20, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Extranajero]

New drinking game - every time someone mentions the word 'cheating' you have a shot of Tequila....
I don't drink, so it'll be a can of Monster for me....


 

 

Edited May 20, 2023 by Extranajero

[SharpeXB]

28 minutes ago, Extranajero said:

New drinking game - every time someone mentions the word 'cheating' you have a shot of Tequila....
I don't drink, so it'll be a can of Monster for me....

Cheating out of ignorance that you’re cheating is still cheating.

[Gary]

So what next SharpeXB - force everyone onto the same resolution - or everyone into the same VR headset if you want to play?

How do we penalise the youngstgers online so they have to suffer the same vision restrictions older people might have - you know, just so it can be fair and the same for everyone.

Your arguement is seriously flawed - sorry!

[SharpeXB]

3 hours ago, Gary said:

So what next SharpeXB - force everyone onto the same resolution - or everyone into the same VR headset if you want to play?

Sorting players by age or hardware obviously isn’t feasible. There aren’t enough players online for that.
It doesn’t take an argument to define what cheating is. Everyone knows what that means. Maybe in computer games this gets blurred but just ask if every player has default access to the tools or settings that you’re using to gain an advantage or benefit. If not then you’re cheating. A mod which materially affects gameplay is cheating. Plain and simple. The fact that DCS hadn’t closed that loophole yet doesn’t make it fair. See excuse #2

3 hours ago, Gary said:

How do we penalise the youngstgers online so they have to suffer the same vision restrictions older people might have - you know, just so it can be fair and the same for everyone.

See you’re just rationalizing cheating under method #1 above “the game is too hard” or “I have some disadvantage” that justifies cheating. 

Most people are acclimated to societal norms well enough to innately understand what cheating is. 

Edited May 20, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Why485]

18 hours ago, Eldur said:

DCS still has the problem of showing dots or any kind of labels even when the object is obstructed by the very own aircraft / cockpit.

This is not true of the dots, only the labels. Dots are 3D rendered geometry the same way the aircraft themselves are, and are occluded the same as any other 3D geometry in the game world. Labels are not dots. They are UI text drawn on the screen, but because the labels have several "dot" settings, it's caused some confusion. The dots and labels are completely independent systems.

Edited May 20, 2023 by Why485

[Enigma89]

2 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Sorting players by age or hardware obviously isn’t feasible. There aren’t enough players online for that.
It doesn’t take an argument to define what cheating is. Everyone knows what that means. Maybe in computer games this gets blurred but just ask if every player has default access to the tools or settings that you’re using to gain an advantage or benefit. If not then you’re cheating. A mod which materially affects gameplay is cheating. Plain and simple. The fact that DCS hadn’t closed that loophole yet doesn’t make it fair. See excuse #2

See you’re just rationalizing cheating under criteria #1 above “the game is too hard” or “I have some disadvantage” that justifies cheating. 

Most people are acclimated to societal norms well enough to innately understand what cheating is. 

 

>Using settings available to everyone to downscale to 1080p not cheating
>Using a mod available to everyone to make spotting at high resolutions more similar to 1080p cheating

Interesting. I was curious who were the 4% of people that voted against the mod when the poll went up. I am glad that I read through this because in my mind it shows a very elementary understanding of the game and how the servers manage their communities. 

I really believe in numbers and I would strongly suggest that people do not lose sight of the community's position on this. 94% of players were in favour of this mod. People like SharpeXB represent the 4% yet SharpeXB has been spamming this thread.

A disproportionate amount of noise is coming from their side when they represent a tiny minority. Just because there is a really loud and vocal minority does not make them relevant. There is a lot of education that needs to happen on this topic. Please keep this in mind as you read this thread.

Edited May 20, 2023 by Enigma89

[SharpeXB]

34 minutes ago, Enigma89 said:

>Using settings available to everyone to downscale to 1080p not cheating

It’s not cheating because it’s something everyone can do equally. But first of all there’s no way for the game to prevent this. Or likely even to change the rendering process to remove this exploit. Secondly such a player is merely trading one advantage for a disadvantage of having lower resolution and making the game look like garbage. It’s not a win-win

34 minutes ago, Enigma89 said:

>Using a mod available to everyone to make spotting at high resolutions more similar to 1080p cheating

The mod isn’t available to everyone because many people do not want to mess around with mods or even know that it exists. Also you’re ignoring the fact that it can be exploited. 
 

Face it, you know this is cheating you’re just making excuses, nice try 

Edited May 20, 2023 by SharpeXB

[PinkCube]

19 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Face it, you know this is cheating you’re just making excuses, nice try 

Face it, the overwhelming majority disagree with you for a reason (you are wrong). Sorry we don't conform to your societal standards.

There's two main reasons people use clear canopy and dots. And, the advantages they give a player are extremely minimal.
a) If shadows off, the sun shines through the cockpit and hits the glass and reflects straight into your eyes
b) DCS isn't smart enough to provide scaling for players on 2k/4k monitors

Now because of this greatly out-of-touch decision to make this change to DCS, all that's happened with this patch is that Enigma's Cold War has disabled IC check entirely so players can keep using these mods. The end result is that the most popular PvP server is NOW MORE VULNERABLE to cheaters.

Edited May 20, 2023 by PinkCube

[key_stroked]

8 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Many people don’t want to use mods due to the problems they can cause or the difficulty in dealing with them

Ok. So they don't want to use them. Doesn't mean they can't, as you claimed earlier. Won't use =/= can't use.

And if I go into the DCS graphics options and change my resolution, that also affects the distance I can see "dots". Does that make me a cheater too even though everyone can also change their resolution?

Your definition of cheating needs refinement.

26 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

 

The mod isn’t available to everyone 
 

Yes, it literally is available to everyone.

You're changing the definition of words just so it fits your argument lol. Doesn't really lend your argument any weight. Just makes you look like you have to be right all the time.

Edited May 20, 2023 by key_stroked

[Enigma89]

SharpeXB, if you need to be taught how to install mods just let us know. You just have to copy and paste a folder once you figure out how to download something. Maybe the confusion from your side on this is because you think the mod installation process is some sort of hard process.

2% of the the US population still uses AOL. I would not be surprised if a non-trivial amount of those people fall into 4% anti-spotters. 

 

Edited May 20, 2023 by Enigma89

[diego999]

1 hour ago, Enigma89 said:

>Using settings available to everyone to downscale to 1080p not cheating
>Using a mod available to everyone to make spotting at high resolutions more similar to 1080p cheating

Interesting. I was curious who were the 4% of people that voted against the mod when the poll went up. I am glad that I read through this because in my mind it shows a very elementary understanding of the game and how the servers manage their communities. 

I really believe in numbers and I would strongly suggest that people do not lose sight of the community's position on this. 94% of players were in favour of this mod. People like SharpeXB represent the 4% yet SharpeXB has been spamming this thread.

A disproportionate amount of noise is coming from their side when they represent a tiny minority. Just because there is a really loud and vocal minority does not make them relevant. There is a lot of education that needs to happen on this topic. Please keep this in mind as you read this thread.

 

 

Being a new guy around here, SharpeXB looks like the resident apologist for ED. Every time there's a thread asking for a fix or a feature, he will endlessly spam the discussion with arguments about why it can't or shouldn't be done.

Tiring really.

Edited May 20, 2023 by diego999
typo

[Rudel_chw]

Honestly, I don't understand why ED cares about anti-cheating measures ..  as those measures seems to not be appreciated by the majority of the MP community. If I were at ED's helm I would leave DCS as is and let the Game Server's Admins deal with cheating players as they see fit, after all it is their problem, not ED's 

[Temetre]

Tbh, I hope this whole thing has highlighted how spotting in DCS is problematic, both with dots and without. Also how the even more degraded visibility by canopy reflections/scratches are not just unrealistic, but quite irritating.

[Rudel_chw]

1 minute ago, Minhal said:

How do you come to this conclusion?

 

By reading threads like this on the Forum everytime something affects the IC.

 

1 minute ago, Minhal said:

... already locking or encrypting files and folders, harming lots of legit mods and customizations in the process.

 

Actually, the encrypting of files was made to protect ED's intellectual property as some users were taking ED's sound samples, and modifying them to produce Mods with allegedly better sound.

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, PinkCube said:

the most popular PvP server is NOW MORE VULNERABLE to cheaters.

Well since you can’t define what cheating is, you shouldn’t have a problem. 

1 hour ago, key_stroked said:

Yes, it literally is available to everyone.

It’s been downloaded 1,936 times. Do you think that’s “everyone” in DCS?

17 minutes ago, Rudel_chw said:

Honestly, I don't understand why ED cares about anti-cheating measures ..  as those measures seems to not be appreciated by the majority of the MP community. If I were at ED's helm I would leave DCS as is and let the Game Server's Admins deal with cheating players as they see fit, after all it is their problem, not ED's 

A perception of widespread cheating hurts the appeal of the game. Any game developer has an interest in preventing it. Honestly ED seems not to try enough. Look how this simple thing was possible. Sure MP is not a big part of DCS but perhaps this is a reason. Nobody likes playing what they perceive as an unfair game. 

1 hour ago, Enigma89 said:

SharpeXB, if you need to be taught how to install mods just let us know.

That’s not the problem. All things considered mods are a gigantic pain to deal with. One reason is at some point they will probably stop working. Like this one!

14 minutes ago, Temetre said:

I hope this whole thing has highlighted how spotting in DCS is problematic, both with dots and without.

Well it does actually look like they are considering incorporating this mod in some fashion so that could turn out to be a good thing. And if it’s officially in the game, then it’s not cheating! See how that works…

[Rudel_chw]

4 minutes ago, Minhal said:

ED is doing such a good job fixing stuff, right?

 

Well, I have no problem with ED protecting their work .. if you want to improve a sound on DCS all you have to do is provide your own sound sample.

I've seen many livery creators that get pissed off when someone uses a texture they have created, on their own livery but without crediting the original author .. why would ED's work be any different?

[SharpeXB]

2 hours ago, key_stroked said:

Yes, it literally is available to everyone.

Doping in sports is available to every athlete. Does that mean it shouldn’t be considered cheating?

Every player in baseball has pine tar available to them. Should that not be considered cheating as well?

Take as long as you like…

Edited May 20, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Extranajero]

Remember kids, having a more user friendly canopy in your flight sim is exactly the same as taking steroids, or using something I've never heard of to cheat in a sport that only Americans care about.
Just Say No

[Spartan105]

20 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Doping in sports is available to every athlete. Does that mean it shouldn’t be considered cheating?

Every player in baseball has pine tar available to them. Should that not be considered cheating as well?

Take as long as you like…

 

You're trying to conflate people using the dot mod with cheating by getting an unfair advantage. As others have tried to explain, the point of the dot mod is to provide those with larger resolution monitors the same level of situational awareness that those with 1080p or smaller monitors have. Is it possible that people could've used a similar approach to get that unfair advantage? Yes, but again, that's not what was being done here.

As I'm sure you're aware, DCS is an old game and much of its design and code base has been carried over from its predecessors. Back when the dot method was first implemented, I'm sure it made perfect sense to use a single pixel dot; even 1080p monitors were either a rarity or didn't even exist yet. As monitor resolutions have increased, a new method has been needed for some time, and I'm at least encouraged that ED is evaluating the mod as a potential solution.