discussion Virtual Reality Considerations

[nikoel]

Hi Baltic,

Thanks for the campaign. It’s been a mixed bag so far, but I’ll reserve my opinion until I’ve completed it and had some time to reflect. Like squeaks and rattles in an otherwise luxurious car, I think it’s the combination of small details that is affecting what is otherwise an overall decent campaign.

I wanted to let you know that, in Virtual Reality, the popup that instructs you to switch PRI to Chainsaw and SEC to Base, etc., is overlaid directly on top of the kneeboard. This prevents the player from clearly being able to read from the frequency list. Or see the map, or anything that the player has on their kneeboard throughout the campaign

Although not strictly realistic, I really appreciate the approach taken by Sedlo, who, within the comms, simply states something like, “Flight, push Chainsaw on 8 left.” - You actually do this a couple of times yourself. In DCS, navigating through pages to find frequencies and then returning to your previous page can be cumbersome. I believe the graphics used in your implementation, while visually appealing, are less effective than the default DCS popup system. The default system dynamically resizes and adapts to aspect ratios and player settings, allowing control over elements like font size, which greatly improves usability and readability

Additionally, while also not strictly realistic, it would be helpful for VR users if default messages with coordinates and nine-lines remained displayed a little longer. In VR, transcribing information takes longer and can easily slip out of short-term memory. I know you’ve implemented a popup for this, but it can be very hard to read when overlaid on the kneeboard, and it isn’t always available. I have been forced a number of time to hit escape and scroll to 'messages' to review the info

Lastly, I recommend revisiting the kneebriefs. Many of them are very difficult to read in VR, even with a high-end setup running a high pixel count and with good vision. For specific examples, consider the map in the earlier missions. Its low-contrast monochrome design made it difficult to discern, and during the first (second?) mission, I found myself backtracking multiple times just to figure out where I was supposed to park the jet because I didn't even see the writing on the other side of the map as it too was dark grey and in small font. In later missions you started using a blue sharpie which was much more helpful

Consider giving the player at the end of the main mission a question from Magic - did you want to RTB or do you need to refuel. I actually did a A2A refuel on the mission where I started WW3 because the flight lead I was following had a bad habit of going in and out of burner the entire time and the Tupolev had legs behind it too when I jinked and had to catch back up. It semi bricked the mission with the triggers re-aligning when I landed and the flight lead was already shut down on the ramp, still got the 100% and moved on to the next mission

There are more points I could mention, like blasting the Eurobeat at the end of the mission but I believe the issues above would significantly improve the experience for players. Some, like the frequency presentation, may come down to personal preference, but others—like the popup covering the kneeboard—are higher-priority concerns.

I understand this campaign is your passion project, and I don’t want to diminish your efforts. However, I wanted to voice these concerns in case you’d like to address them in this or future campaigns. I trust you’ll decide how best to handle this feedback

All the best,

Edited January 15 by nikoel

[baltic_dragon]

Thanks for your feedback, nikoel. 

As for the pop-up: I never use the kneeboard on the screen, as in VR I find it much more immersive to just look a the one on pilot's body leg - plus I am using Open Kneeboard app which is a game-changer in VR and helps a lot with keeping track of things, especially the comms, as it shows you whole comms history which also addresses another concern you voiced regarding the time coordinates stay on screen (see next paragraph). In any case I never had any complaints about it from over 20 people testing the campaign nor those playing it later on and changing it at this stage would require going through each trigger having pop-ups in each mission and changing their position, so I'll keep them where they are here - but keep that in mind for my future projects. The pop-ups can just show up on the left without any trouble. 

On that note, that is why I added option for you to ask for the coordinates to be repeated indefinite number of times, which is much much more cumbersome in terms of implementing it in the mission than simple pop-up message, but I find it much more immersive and realistic. And you can always just open the message history from the menu and take it from there.

As for the commands, again I am for realism here - so both ways are OK (push 8 on left or push Chainsaw on Aux) and I mix them on purpose to give players more to do in the campaigns. Majority of the people who buy my campaigns appreciate it but I am aware that it is impossible to match the tastes of everybody and I accept that.

As for the kneeboard pages, I never had major issues, even when using them in-game and looking at the pages directly on pilot's leg, which is much smaller than the one you can open on the right side of the screen. I am aware of issues with several maps that may not be very readable that way and perhaps some DRYAD pages, I'll see what I can do about those. 

As for the A2A option at the end.. something I will look into again, but this adds a huge layer of potential bugs and problems, as AAR especially as wingman in DCS is quite often bugged (then fixed again, then bugged... becoming a vicious circle). And the AI habits and flying patterns you mentioned are also a huge headache.. but I'll see what I can do, though I cannot promise anything. 

Finally, yeah - the volume. I'll tone that down, true that it may be too loud. Thanks for that point. 

In any case, hope you enjoy the rest and let me know if you have further comments.