resolved New spotting is great / New spotting is overcooked feedback thread

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, =475FG= Dawger said:

What is a big part of the fun engaging with you is that you cannot even conceive of being wrong and absolutely must respond.

I’m not wrong about how to report a bug. 

[MAXsenna]

6 hours ago, Cab said:

This just proves to me you’re here to amuse yourself.

He admitted this as much a couple of years back. The reason? Being bored, his own words.  

[=475FG= Dawger]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

I’m not wrong about how to report a bug. 

You are nothing if not predictable. 

[Tippis]

8 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Screenshots and videos are compressed and it would require a 4K display to see exactly what I’m seeing.

You know that “compression” does not mean “data loss” right? And that you can turn it off? And that you can view a 4k image on a 640x480 display? And that the problem you want people to document and report has been documented and reported extensively? So no, no, and no, in roughly that order.

It has gotten to the point where, if you state that the sky is blue, the immediate response would be to pull out the colorimetric instruments and double-check the calibration to make sure they still work properly.

3 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

I’m not wrong about how to report a bug. 

You most certainly are. If you weren't, you'd suggest something that pretty much all bug reports related to graphics should contain, as opposed to something that inherently can't convey the issue (and which you don't understand how to capture to begin with).

Edited October 20, 2024 by Tippis

[BIGNEWY]

folks please stop with the personal insults and the back and forth it isn't helpful. 

As mentioned in the previous newsletter and my other posts here we are looking at a solution for vr that will take into account the different headsets. 

[Branimir76]

13 hours ago, Tippis said:

Neither do exaggerations. DCS is fully usable. Whatever small sample size you used does not qualify as “most players”.

That sounds a lot like you are having issues with a very different gameplay option, not with spotting dots.

 

No, it doesn't. That's the problem with all your blame-shifting: you think that if it works one way for one person it must by necessity work that way for everyone, so if someone says something else, it must be a problem with the person, not the game. In spite of having been shown (which shouldn't even be necessary if you understood how computers work) these differences, you cling to that ridiculous notion.

DCS IS NOT FULLY USABLE.

I dont know what your game is, but you sound ridiculous.

22 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

folks please stop with the personal insults and the back and forth it isn't helpful. 

As mentioned in the previous newsletter and my other posts here we are looking at a solution for vr that will take into account the different headsets. 

I hope that one of the solutions will be TURN SPOTTING DOT OFF. I am 100% sure that would be a solution for most of the VR devices.

[BIGNEWY]

3 hours ago, Branimir76 said:

DCS IS NOT FULLY USABLE.

I dont know what your game is, but you sound ridiculous.

Sorry but you are exaggerating, DCS is usable, what you are saying is you have chosen not to use it, there is a difference. 

 

[Cab]

3 hours ago, Branimir76 said:

I hope that one of the solutions will be TURN SPOTTING DOT OFF. I am 100% sure that would be a solution for most of the VR devices.

This is a good example of why there’s so much confusion around this issue. I have a Reverb G2, and I would not like the revert. Sure they are too big now, but they were so small and faded previously as to be practically invisible. Most of the time I couldn’t see them inside of 10 miles. 

[Tippis]

3 minutes ago, Pillowcat said:

  Hide contents

 

…and let's not forget what seems to be a favourite:

7. Amputate the leg. Since it can't be fixed here and now, it's best to get rid of it altogether.

[Joch1955]

So another issue I have noticed is that the dot appearance seems to be very aircraft dependant.

If I play some of the included F/A-18 SP missions, for example the AIM-7 practice mission on the PG map, enemy ACs show up as very black large squares easily spotted at 20+ miles in the air and against the ground. This is obviously wrong.

However if I play some of the F-14 instant action BVR missions on the PG or Syria map, enemy ACs show up as very tiny greyish dots, again at 20+ miles (if you zoom in) but which are easy to miss and are hard to spot when against the ground. These actually look really good.

As anyone else noticed or reported this? Tagging @BIGNEWY in case.

This with a Reverb G2, pixel density 1.0, no Anti-Aliasing, graphic settings mostly high.

Edited October 20, 2024 by Joch1955

[MAXsenna]

So another issue I have noticed is that the dot appearance seems to be very aircraft dependant.
If I play some of the included F/A-18 SP missions, for example the AIM-7 practice mission on the PG map, enemy ACs show up as very black large squares easily spotted at 20+ miles in the air and against the ground. This is obviously wrong.
However if I play some of the F-14 instant action BVR missions on the PG or Syria map, enemy ACs show up as very tiny greyish dots, again at 20+ miles (if you zoom in) but which are easy to miss and are hard to spot when against the ground. These actually look really good.
As anyone else noticed or reported this? Tagging @BIGNEWY in case.
This with a Reverb G2, pixel density 1.0, no Anti-Aliasing, graphic settings mostly high.

Maybe the mission force them off?

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Branimir76]

5 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Sorry but you are exaggerating, DCS is usable, what you are saying is you have chosen not to use it, there is a difference. 

 

As I said - "NOT FULLY USABLE"
Not usable if you want to have realistic look at the targets, because they are poking your eyes from unrealistic distances.
Usable if you fly against static objects, or practicing formation flying.

4 hours ago, Cab said:

This is a good example of why there’s so much confusion around this issue. I have a Reverb G2, and I would not like the revert. Sure they are too big now, but they were so small and faded previously as to be practically invisible. Most of the time I couldn’t see them inside of 10 miles. 

We all agree it is was not perfect, but having this drastic change in opposite direction is way worse.
In reality, sometimes you cannot spot a plane inside 10 nm that easily. But also in reality you can never have big black labels around those planes.

[Cab]

23 minutes ago, Branimir76 said:

We all agree it is was not perfect, but having this drastic change in opposite direction is way worse.

That's my point. I don't think it's way worse. But I don't think you and I have a different opinion on the current spotting implementation, but rather we are actually seeing two different results.

[KoN]

On 10/17/2024 at 7:41 PM, Parkour said:

Here is the source: https://steamdb.info/app/223750/charts/#max

If they just fix the ability to turn OFF Improved Spotting Dots again in OPTIONS >  GAMEPLAY, they'll instantly get 4 more players. A bump of .4% of their Steam Player Base.
 

 

Looking at this When did 2.9 come out . 

2020 is an increase maybe due to COVID-19, and 2023 starts dropping off . 

[KoN]

On 10/18/2024 at 3:03 PM, darkman222 said:

Spotting dots worked so good in VR (Varjo Aero) before the rollback to the big blocks.

The things that bother me with what we have now is, that if you use VR zoom the threshold when the dot is disabled sometimes lies in between where you can actually see the bandit and where the 3d model is too small to see but the dot is not displayed either. It happens that if you zoom in you lose the dot and dont see the bandit either.

Also the dot seems to fade out over distance, also not in a linear way. If you see a dot it does not represent if its far away or pretty close which is misleading for estimating the threat if there are multiple bandits.

And it probably does not change the size or the fading characteristics of the dot according to the object size. Thats the most obivous that ejected pilots are displayed as prominent as jets or helicopters. Thus I started chasing parachutists again like months ago when spotting dots were introduced.

 

This has been going on for ages but well said and written. 

[rob10]

43 minutes ago, Branimir76 said:

As I said - "NOT FULLY USABLE"
Not usable if you want to have realistic look at the targets, because they are poking your eyes from unrealistic distances.
Usable if you fly against static objects, or practicing formation flying.

You imply this is the case for EVERYONE.  It's not.  It may be "NOT FULLY USABLE" for YOU, but your posts imply that's the case for everyone which isn't the case.  It's "fully usable" for me.

Please note that I'm not saying (nor do I think) that you don't have a problem and I have no doubt that it's not fully usable for you.  I just have an issue when people presume their issue affects ALL users.  The version before this was equally "NOT FULLY USABLE" for a different subset of users which is why ED is still working on the system.

[KoN]

On 10/18/2024 at 4:35 PM, Branimir76 said:

Spotting dot worked fine for range of VR-s until last update. Now we have black bricks covering planes. It literary prevents me to see the aircraft underneath.

IT IS A BAD SOLUTION. IT DOES NOT WORK.

THE OLD SOLUTION WORKED FINE AND WE WERE NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT IT.

THERE ARE LOTS OF DIFFERENT THINGS ED NEEDS TO FOCUS ON.

LEAVE THE SPOTTING DOT AS IT WAS BEFORE AND DO THE TESTING SOMEWHERE ELSE.

The whole reason things changed was because no could see targets , loads of threads here , ED screwed up with big black blobs , like I said maybe this is ED playing games, so you want it returned back , man this has been going on for years even worst since 2.9 . Something not right with 2.9 shades and shadow and lightning. 

 

[KoN]

On 10/19/2024 at 4:48 PM, SharpeXB said:

I’m curious why that is. My guess is the stereoscopic convergence just isn’t perfect like your real eyesight is, resulting in blur. Because otherwise the resolution is certainly adequate. But phenomenon like “disappearing aircraft” need to be documented by screenshots showing a 3mi label over empty space. Otherwise it could simply be the users perception and not the game. 

Go and buy a VR  headset , find out for yourself. Get one from Amazon test it and return it. Then your see a difference. Mr TV . 

There is a big difference as you will see , and you won't go back to flat screen . 

 

[SharpeXB]

Just now, KoN said:

Go and buy a VR  headset , find out for yourself.

I’ve used them in my work but not for gaming or flight sims. For me personally they seen to have too many performance issues and problems like this topic for me to consider going that route. 

[Branimir76]

37 minutes ago, rob10 said:

You imply this is the case for EVERYONE.  It's not.  It may be "NOT FULLY USABLE" for YOU, but your posts imply that's the case for everyone which isn't the case.  It's "fully usable" for me.

Please note that I'm not saying (nor do I think) that you don't have a problem and I have no doubt that it's not fully usable for you.  I just have an issue when people presume their issue affects ALL users.  The version before this was equally "NOT FULLY USABLE" for a different subset of users which is why ED is still working on the system.

You think that I imply that.  I dont. You think wrong.
ED can work on it, but forcing us to go through the process is not fair.

[Cab]

1 hour ago, Branimir76 said:

You think that I imply that.  I dont. You think wrong.

Well, to be fair, you did say this in a different post...

11 hours ago, Branimir76 said:

I hope that one of the solutions will be TURN SPOTTING DOT OFF. I am 100% sure that would be a solution for most of the VR devices.

...not really "everyone", but still a blanket statement.

And for the record, I agree there needs to be an option to turn them off. But with what I'm seeing at this stage, I would not do that.

[Turbonix]

Am 19.10.2024 um 14:03 schrieb Tippis:

This is a forum. Without opposing opinions, there is no meaningful exchange.

The problem with this opinion is that it's contradicting itself. If you want a realistic spotting system, you don't want the old one. It was catastrophically unrealistic in every way imaginable, at times in ways that shouldn't be able to co-exist, but did anyway — it was that bad. The new one is actually far more realistic, dot size aside, and that dot size is a step along the way in the tweaking process. While it is vastly better than the old one, the new system will naturally go through these iterations where targets will be too large, then too small, then large again, then small again… until we hit some sufficiently good and equitable size that works the best. Same with range — it'll go down and down and down and up and down (the first three downs is just to bring it back from the over-visibility we have, which again I want to remind you is still a massive improvement over the old numbers). The only way forward is through all of that.

If you preferred how it was before, there are three options: 1) you got very very lucky and by pure accident got a good solution out of the system. This was not universal, and that's a problem — a select few being lucky is not sufficient reason to go back. 2) you didn't know better and just got used to it. That's fair enough, but the goal is ultimately to improve the perception simulation, and not knowing what's good and bad is also not a reason to go back to the objectively bad state. 3) you benefitted from it and want to go back to where you had an unfair advantage. This is by far the best reason not to go back.

Except for in one very specific case (who through their incessant posting on the topic in a vain attempt to make sure no improvement ever happened accidentally let slip why they want things to stay the same), I am not trying to assign any particular one of those reasons to posters who want to get rid of the dots. But throughout the discussion, it has been shown time and again that it boils down to one of those three when you manage to get an answer as to why they want to go back.

To get a good, solid, modern, well-thought-through simulation of perception along the entire spectrum of ranges — all the way from BVR and right up until you are trading paint with another plane. DCS' spotting is disgraceful and it has a long-standing and well-deserved reputation for being the worst in the business. I do not want to see ED's efforts to get out of that hole ruined by complaints from people who don't understand the need or the process, or who actively want to sabotage it.

I can accept opinions and wishes just fine. But sometimes those opinions are on very shaky grounds — based on incorrect assumptions, misunderstandings, lack of a grander perspective or context — and a reasonable opinion-holder is likely to change their mind if they understand why that is. If you are of the opinion that the moon is made of cheese and will soon crash into us, then maybe you can be swayed from your plan to bake the world's largest cracker if you learn that it's mostly rock and if any of the pebbles that will remain after tidal forces rip it apart actually reach the ground for you to eat, baking will not exist as a concept any more.

And sometimes, those “opinions” are actually nothing of the kind. They're just rote repetitions of known and proven untruths and fantasies, with the sole intent to maintain (or regress back to) a state of horrible brokenness and unfairness. No amount of geology and orbital mechanics demonstration will help there — these posts are just there to spread utter nonsense to try to prop up misinformed (actual) opinions in the hope that hose opinion-holders will reciprocate and accidentally support regression towards a bad state of affairs.

Wishes are a bit different. You can wish for anything, but you need understand what it is you wish for. If you want more realism, then you either need to show that this is actually what will come out of your wish, or you need to be prepared to read long explanations of why the outcome will actually be the opposite of what you want.

I've posted it before, but repetition is the mother of somethingsomething…

I expect a good spotting system to not just deal with spotting. I expect it to be a simulation of perception. “Spotting” is really just one particular phase of that larger system, dealing with the range segment where a target crosses over from BVR to WVR, but is not yet large enough in the sky to let you identify it as another other than a tiny blob. No direction, no type, no discernible colour — nothing. Just a blob that you probably want to keep your eye on until you figure out what it is. Closer in, that “spotting” will transition into “tracking”, where you still don't know what it is, but you can tell where it's going. You can see that it has a pointy end and a burn:y end, and IT'S COMING RIGHT AT YOU! Even closer in, it crosses over into an “identification” phase, where you can now tell the make and colour of the thing, and figure out whether to shoot it or not.

These different phases need to be data driven, not dependent on game settings. We have (admittedly spotty and difficult-to-acquire) data on what can be seen when, and these need to be the determining factor as far as when targets transition into spotting range, into tracking range, and (to a lesser degree) into identification range. They must not be driven by simple geometry and trigonometry, although those can be used to sanity-check the outcome. Perception doesn't work like that. It's a partially discrete cognitive process where the brain will both filter out and fill in noisy information to let us see less than geometry would suggest for some situations, and more than mere geometry would allow in others. This also means that we can't have a single solution to cover all phases. Spots can't convey aspect — they're dots — so something else is needed to provide that information to the brain.

The system needs to be equitable. I use that word rather than “fair” because the whole point is to be able to play with the gaps in the other player's knowledge to create an unfair advantage for yourself. But they ways in which you can do that need to be the same for everyone. You need to be able to rely on the fact that your plane will not stand out against the sky or the ground, and sneak up on the guy that way, and whatever settings they have on their end should not change this. Just because he has a 4k display or plays in VR, he shouldn't be able to spot you at four times the distance, or fail to spot you at all. This means it needs to have pretty complex systems to account for and counteract things like different resolutions, different pixel densities, zoom levels, texture selections, etc etc. You will never be able to solve pixel-peeping, but you can try to get close.

Because of this, I expect the system to have a clearly defined baseline: at what resolution and PPI, and at what range, is a specific target is exactly one 100%-filled pixel large. I expect this baseline to translate into “blobs” at higher resolutions and PPI by necessity, but I also expect aliasing to be used to create sub-pixel details for both higher and lower resolutions. I have no particular expectations of when I should see a target — let the data show what it should be — but I do expect that no amount of fiddling with settings and controls will change that. Something huge enough that it shows up at 10nm shows up at 10nm for everyone. Something that is hidden at that distance is hidden from everyone. As far as spotting goes, the use parameters such as livery, size, aspect, relation to the sun etc would be icing on top, but are far-future goodies rather than something I expect out of the gate.

I also expect it to be a painful process to jump straight to the equitable part of that whole thing without having established the baseline, or any of the data, nor any additional solutions for the other parts of the perception simulation. We'll have periods of over-visbility and under-visiblity; periods of hardware advantages and periods of hardware disadvantages. But I expect it to move forward rather than regress. Missing the mark is not the same as regression.

 

Thanks for the long and detailed response to the questions i had to you.

I can especially agree to the answer to "What do you expect from a good spotting mechanic".
A system like you have explained would be good and realistic and equal to everyone on every system. That would be die ideal case.
Glad to see that in the end we are on the same side.

But i still wonder if it would look an feel realistic at the same time though.
Because it will very likely still be a system of artificial dots
but a system of dots will always depend on one annoying factor: the dots themselves

so why isn´t just it possible to limit render distance for ground and aerial objects? To prevent a pop in/out effect there could be some sort of smooth fade in/out mechanic.

[Turbonix]

vor 14 Stunden schrieb BIGNEWY:

Sorry but you are exaggerating, DCS is usable, what you are saying is you have chosen not to use it, there is a difference. 

 

so then, I am just another one of the hundreds of players who just chose not to use DCS anymore..

DCS spotting mechanic is just a farce

Definition of "farce":
The noun farce refers to something ridiculous, ludicrous or grotesquely funny. A farce is an exaggerated, silly-dramatic situation comedy that slides into the ridiculous and absurd.

In a farce, actions, behaviors and situations are taken to extremes and exaggerated. They often lack any logic and develop into an abstruse, weird comedy. Typical for a farce are surprising, unpredictable twists as well as bizarre dialogues and incidents.

The theatre knows farce as a form of comedy in which crude jokes, slapstick and comedy of mistaken identity are used. But also in television, film and politics one can sometimes experience farces, when events and behaviors take on increasingly grotesque, absurd features.
 

sounds familiar huh?

[Tippis]

1 hour ago, Turbonix said:

But i still wonder if it would look an feel realistic at the same time though.
Because it will very likely still be a system of artificial dots
but a system of dots will always depend on one annoying factor: the dots themselves

so why isn´t just it possible to limit render distance for ground and aerial objects? To prevent a pop in/out effect there could be some sort of smooth fade in/out mechanic.

The thing is, when we're talking about “spotting” (as defined in that whole spiel) they should be dots. They're the smallest thing the simulated pilot's eye can even pick up. There's no other way to sensibly represent that point-shaped object but with a dot. It only gets weird because of how it should look the same(ish) for everyone, where particularly high-resolution displays would have to render it using multiple pixels. This intuitively defies our understanding of a “dot” to some degree, but then again, a period is also a dot — we're just used to the way that particular dot looks (also, we want that particular dot to be a bit bigger so we can actually see the end of the sentences we denote with it).

We rub against the limits of realism because modern displays, when you're not rubbing your nose against them, are capable of displaying smaller details than the player's eye can resolve. Representing the pilot's eye on such a screen will almost by necessity make it larger than a single pixel, which may feel like it doesn't match the whole “smallest thing possible” notion. So yes, it would be realistic, and the problem is more in the physical setup of your gaming area.

Dots also offer a rather important benefit in that they are trivial to fade into the background. The pop-in issue is real, again because of the resolutions we have these days, and it's a whole lot of work of questionable value to make a 3D LoD model that is only ever meant to be rendered as maybe 3 pixels, and then to also make that 3D model transparent on the fly. Compare that just just filling in a few pixels with an RGBA value, where the Alpha in particular is what makes it fade in a controllable manner. Representing them as dots also rather neatly circumvents the zoom issue, where the player tool to overcome the limits of how much (or little) of the pilot's field of view actually fits on the screen should not somehow make that simulated pilot see more than they should be able to. If you do it with a 3D model, you need to scale it down to counteract zoom to make sure it's always that “smallest thing”, whereas with a dot, it's… well… still just the same dot, even when you narrow down your FoV.

To make it sensibly and realistically continuous, it pretty much needs to be a process of: Fade into dot -> fade into scaled down model -> scale into oversized model -> scale to 1:1 model. All to overcome the detail capabilities of the display systems but also to properly model what the brain can fill in if it has enough to work with.

Edited October 21, 2024 by Tippis

[BIGNEWY]

5 hours ago, Turbonix said:

so then, I am just another one of the hundreds of players who just chose not to use DCS anymore..

DCS spotting mechanic is just a farce

Definition of "farce":
The noun farce refers to something ridiculous, ludicrous or grotesquely funny. A farce is an exaggerated, silly-dramatic situation comedy that slides into the ridiculous and absurd.

In a farce, actions, behaviors and situations are taken to extremes and exaggerated. They often lack any logic and develop into an abstruse, weird comedy. Typical for a farce are surprising, unpredictable twists as well as bizarre dialogues and incidents.

The theatre knows farce as a form of comedy in which crude jokes, slapstick and comedy of mistaken identity are used. But also in television, film and politics one can sometimes experience farces, when events and behaviors take on increasingly grotesque, absurd features.
 

sounds familiar huh?

We can go back and forth all day playing with definitions it wont help. 

We have said we are still working on the dots, we want a system that takes different VR devices into account when applying spotting dots. I hope we can share some in the next patch but I am afraid we will have to wait some more.

thanks