Vision nerfed yet again?!

[-Gews- 7443]

Don't see the problem :P

Hard to see the problem when you have no frame of reference. You look at a player, he appears about 300 meters off. Maybe he's only 150 meters away. Without rangefinder how do you know? Even with a rangefinder most people have little or no idea how objects should appear at various real life distances, or even what those distances look like. And furthermore most of the games people are used to playing have no zoom at all, coming from the 'arcade' side of things rather than 'mil sim'.

[Jex 1104]

This is a great point. I agree, they are not trained soldiers. So how do you simulate this, taking away their ability to see?!??

 

No you simulate the "usual guy" by weapon characteristics A3 does this better. Inertia, weight, recoil, fatigue, sway. Even dispersion, this is more like the "usual guy" than bad eyesight.

 

So much of any engagement in RV (the engine), is spotting, your ability to do this is more than half of surviving.

 

@Jexter Not sure what running speeds have to do with anything, cant wait for that to go. "you say stupid level of zoom", but it's not really zoom, its natural proportion. You do however always have unnatural zoomed out the entire time, in every game.

 

No u misunderstand :)

 

The stupid zoom level was when you could go into settings and use the FOV slider to get 20x zoom which was a stupid decision by the devs as much as running at ridiculous speeds was.

[blacklabel79 949]

people grossly overestimate distances in games. 

 

 

coming from the 'arcade' side of things rather than 'mil sim'.

 

i remember the firce discussions on weapon zoom in ro2. Divided the community completly and spawned a "hardcore" gamemmode noone plays nowadays...

 

 

as much as running at ridiculous speeds was.

 

 

they said from the beginning the runningspeed is a placehgolder due to no a. alternative means of transportation b. stamina system in infancy

Edited June 3, 2015 by {Core}BlackLabel

[-Gews- 7443]

The stupid zoom level was when you could go into settings and use the FOV slider to get 20x zoom which was a stupid decision by the devs as much as running at ridiculous speeds was.

Indeed, but that's a separate issue.

i remember the firce discussions on weapon zoom in ro2. Divided the community completly and spawned a "hardcore" gamemmode noone plays nowadays...

"Lost my glasses" mode.

[blacklabel79 949]

"Lost my glasses" mode.

 

dude not funny if you are, like me, in molemode without them :D * i turned down a rather fit chick once because she "jokingly" stole my glasses for too long wich pissed me off....

 

I disregarded 3rd PP and zoom as crutches but only because i was used to a certain mindset stemming from a rather elitist group of players from a hc niche shooter ;)

 

I never got into arma really. Due to potato PC ( damm the case,the PSU and one HDD are now 9 years old :D ) and not much interest in modern weapon platforms.

Edited June 3, 2015 by {Core}BlackLabel

[Julianwop (DayZ) 14]

I actually prefer the zoom to be like it is now. It makes finding a pair of binoculars or scope feel like christmas! As it should be.

[Jex 1104]

people grossly overestimate distances in games. 

 

 

i remember the firce discussions on weapon zoom in ro2. Divided the community completly and spawned a "hardcore" gamemmode noone plays nowadays...

 

 

 

they said from the beginning the runningspeed is a placehgolder due to no a. alternative means of transportation b. stamina system in infancy

 

Except most people in the Mod ran everywhere, anyway so that was a BS reason and they needed to run a test on stamina for an entire year - considering we're all running everywhere, anyway, what does speeding us up achieve in testing? I'm calling BS on that, too.

[Bororm 1156]

I actually prefer the zoom to be like it is now. It makes finding a pair of binoculars or scope feel like christmas! As it should be.

 

I mean binocs were probably the best item to find after a weapon in the mod, and it had more zoom than the SA.

 

They're still extremely useful.  Once again people grossly exaggerate the effect of some of these mechanics.

[Grimey Rick 3417]

Hard to see the problem when you have no frame of reference. You look at a player, he appears about 300 meters off. Maybe he's only 150 meters away. Without rangefinder how do you know? Even with a rangefinder most people have little or no idea how objects should appear at various real life distances, or even what those distances look like. And furthermore most of the games people are used to playing have no zoom at all, coming from the 'arcade' side of things rather than 'mil sim'.

You'll know because it's a video game played on a ~19-32" monitor and you'll learn from experience what your ranges are in this make believe world of Chernarus. Complaining about needing scaled fields of view is pretty silly.

"But Arma 2, 3, and DayZ mod had it!"

Yeah. And it was stupid then, too. It might be "closer to realistic" than not having it, and that's fine. If wasn't so janky and clunky it wouldn't be so bad, but, yeah, it is.

[-Gews- 7443]

"But Arma 2, 3, and DayZ mod had it!"

Yeah. And it was stupid then, too. It might be "closer to realistic" than not having it, and that's fine. If wasn't so janky and clunky it wouldn't be so bad, but, yeah, it is.

Nah, it isn't. "Janky" my ass, you click, you zoom. What next, no iron sights or freelook either? Too "janky"?

[Coheed_IV 381]

If wasn't so janky and clunky it wouldn't be so bad, but, yeah, it is.

Yeah, I'll agree there's something too not wanting it to be clunky. Arma3 has improved this quite a bit though. It zooms in slightly quicker, and it really has a feel of focusing. You can free look and zoom in about the same time that you would turn your head and focus. A2 didn't fell quite as good. From my experience dayz has been closer to A3 than A2.

 

First it was "your eye balls don't zoom", then "you should focus, not zoom", now its "realistic, but clunky, so axe it". I really think the problem is, that your not comfortable with it not being like every other game.

In this game or engine 1000 meters should feel like 1000 meters, other games don't do that.

Edited June 3, 2015 by Coheed_IV

[-Gews- 7443]

Arma3 has improved this quite a bit though. It zooms in slightly quicker, and it really has a feel of focusing. You can free look and zoom in about the same time that you would turn your head and focus. A2 didn't fell quite as good. From my experience dayz has been closer to A3 than A2.

I agree with that. In fact there's no reason the zoom shouldn't be instant, apart from style. A2 is very slow. I said once, "the zoom is quicker in ARMA 3, it feels way more responsive and "usable" to the player. In real life, the zoom takes 0 seconds, because your eyes are "zoomed in" all the time. I believe a faster zoom in the standalone would be appreciated by all players."

[Grimey Rick 3417]

Yeah, I'll agree there's something too not wanting it to be clunky. Arma3 has improved this quite a bit though. It zooms in slightly quicker, and it really has a feel of focusing. You can free look and zoom in about the same time that you would turn your head and focus. A2 didn't fell quite as good. From my experience dayz has been closer to A3 than A2.

First it was "your eye balls don't zoom", then "you should focus, not zoom", now its "realistic, but clunky, so axe it". I really think the problem is, that your not comfortable with it not being like every other game.

In this game or engine 1000 meters should feel like 1000 meters, other games don't do that.

EDIT: yay for phone auto correct typos!

No, my issue is still that it's not realistic while trying so hard to be realistic, ironically.

It's already so easy to kill people in DayZ, the right click zoom just makes it easier. I generally don't die, like, ever. I've had 1500 hours invested into DayZ since October -- I've logged maybe 100 since then -- so I'm obviously comfortable with it. I played lots of Arma and DayZ mod too -- but if given am opportunity to get rid of it, I would. It's always something that's bugged me. This game is built on am engine that was designed to simulate combat scenarios, yes, but it was designed for VIRTUAL REALITY. Not a computer monitor. It's always felt like it's trying too hard to BE realistic, when it just makes things feel janky. Nothing is ever going to be 1:1 with the human eye, ffs.

Just let it go, guys. It seems to be going anyway, so I'm not sure why I'm wasting my energy typing.

Peace and love, sexy kids.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Grimey Rick

[Coheed_IV 381]

I've always assumed it was used on a monitor, but public info is not abundant. TrackIR at the most, I think. Look here https://www.dvidshub.net/video/351663/vbs3-training-soldiers-developing-leaders#.VW-bHk0w9aQ

 

I'll try to agree with something you said, its too easy to shoot or kill. I have no problem with changing that, but why change vision? Change weapon handling, fatigue, recoil, dispersion. Those elements can even be part of soft skills. Not sure about dispersion changing for a character, I've never seen this done? Anyone know?

 

As you can see in the video, Dayz isn't replicating the soldiers there. But vision isn't what makes them a soldier.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Coheed_IV

[gibonez 3633]

In Red Orchestra it is insanely hard to hit people with irons at 300m-500m and no it is not because of the lack of zoom but instead due to very good weapon handling mechanics.

 

The forced freeaim requires alot of correction when trying to hit people out at those distances.

[skypig 139]

You'll know because it's a video game played on a ~19-32" monitor and you'll learn from experience what your ranges are in this make believe world of Chernarus. Complaining about needing scaled fields of view is pretty silly.

"But Arma 2, 3, and DayZ mod had it!"

Yeah. And it was stupid then, too. It might be "closer to realistic" than not having it, and that's fine. If wasn't so janky and clunky it wouldn't be so bad, but, yeah, it is.

Exactly... in every game I've ever played things look different sizes, compared to any other game, at the same distance.

All the trail and error of judging distances based on size was just part of the learning curve.

Never had a zoom, outside of using a scope or binoculars, until I played ro2.

It just seemed arcade-y...

[hombrecz 832]

I would still think there can be middle ground between how big things are in real life and reasonable FOV for a video game, even without any zooming.

 

Also nothing bad when devs are trying new things, but yes, I guess feedback is needed.

 

By this point it must be clear to everyone, that no matter what, DayZ can not be 100% like a real life, since that is not yet technically possible.

The real question could be, what is acceptable, or what is the best choice to go with. Unrealistic zoom to emulate real life distance view, or smaller things because of FOV.

[holyteal 8]

 

Many of us are glad the "experimentation has all gone one way" - that being to make DayZ less a military PvP game and more a player interaction (i.e. interaction besides shoot everything that moves) zombie survival game.  The player should not feel in total command of his surroundings all the time with eagle eye zoom - I'm so tired of seeing guys in their videos quickly changing their FOV for ridiculous zoom to snipe.

 

 

 

This.

I believe removing/nerfing the zoom is not only about realism, but about gameplay. Dayz need to make you feel unsafe to be true to his root, it's a survival horror game with zombies, having an "eagle eye zoom" is a big drawback for the atmosphere and human interactions. It makes everyone feel way more distancied than they should, a lot less immersed in their surrounding. When i was playing the game at the beginning of Alpha, i was litteraly zooming all my surroundings all the time because it helped master and predicts my encounters, i couldn't be surprised by a zombie or a player interaction if they were not hidden. I could see them coming 360° around me at about 1KM away.

 

Yeah, sure in real life you could see at 1KM but you are not sitting in a chair, perfectly immobile in front of a screen analysing every bit of pixel looking for every little bit of movement poping out, in real life you can actually forget to check a direction or be distracted by something because you are obviously immersed in whatever you are doing.

So the zoom for me actually enhances in a bad way the over-analys that videogames implies, the kind of things that lead to cold and mass KOS.

That's why this question is not that simple, personally i prefer loosing some vision to make Dayz more thrilling and more immersive, immersive not because it's more realist but because your brain will not be able to control everything so you will feel more challenged and emotionally involved in it.

 

If it was me, i would remove the zoom definitely and replaces the right click with the head movement button. I believe having head movement on right click will help the game feels more alive (interactions between players will be enhanced) and improves ergonomy.

Edited June 5, 2015 by HolyTeal

[sneakydudes 278]

This thread is as bad as looking for loot :(

 

 

its ALPHA!!! lol.....

[xalienax 621]

This thread is as bad as looking for loot :(

 

 

its ALPHA!!! lol.....

which is THE time to bitch, moan, and complain, and hopefully in the end we'll end up with the most hated things revised or replaced with better mechanics. 'Squeaky wheel gets the grease' and all that.

[-Gews- 7443]

This sounds good...
 

Since there's been some discussion regarding changes in the character zoom mechanic I decided to jump in and explain what are we trying to achieve.

We should probably start by asking the question "Why have a characters-eye zoom in the first place?". It's the old problem with emulating a 3D world on insufficient hardware. The human field of vision (fov) is around 190° and the area where the vision cones of both eyes overlap is around 100°. Unfortunately, most of todays monitors viewed from a regular distance usually tend to cover only 45°of human fov in real life. This means that if you want for target on screen to appear in real-life size you are only able to display around ~1/2 of what you would see in reality, stereoscopically.

And so as a designer you have to choose - Should I display objects in the distance properly but sacrifice the overall vision or set the fov to 100° but deform the whole picture? The trick of Arma is actually not to choose and instead introduce an "eye zoom" instead. This way you can keep the surrounding awareness by setting the default fov to 100°, but when necessary to perceive a depth of field properly occurs (ie. you are shooting), you can "zoom in" to 45°.

0.57 eye zoom


0.58 eye zoom

But I wonder about this part:
 

We know that zoomed fov or ironsights must be 45° because it emulates the eye and we stated earlier that 45° is realistic. But what should the unzoomed fov be? It can't be higher than a number the player can set through FOV slider. (This way would going into iron sights actually shows the unzoomed picture which is definitely not something you would desire). So the fov of ironsights should be also the the smallest fov we allow players to set by the fov slider. We decided to set range of fov slider from 60° to 90°.

It's important to keep in mind, that double pressing + or - extends it to 45° or 105°, so the range is not so small as it might appears. It also doesn't matter what is your current fov - double pressing + key will always set it to 45°. This means you can quickly switch between observing surroundings and focusing on objects "modes", while being able to play with your prefered fov for most of the time. I belive this descision helps equalize players and reduce fov slider abuse.

The wording of this is a bit confusing. So 45 or 60 degrees, both? Would pressing RMB also zoom to 45 degrees? Or only 60? And then to 45 with numpad +? Because it should go to 45 deg, it would be a pain to have to pressing +/- for a continuation of the same function that has always been provided by right mouse. Although I suppose one could bind RMB to that control instead.

And I wonder about this.
 
"This way would going into iron sights actually shows the unzoomed picture which is definitely not something you would desire"

Actually that is something I would desire, as long as the sights can also zoom with RMB. Iron sight FOV should also have two zoom levels for the same reason as eye FOV. Although I suspect this might be referring to the current iron sight fixed FOV situation.

[robophant 102]

I really like the way they reduced the magic-eyeball-zoom.

Since render distance of grass is so very limited it was literally impossible to hide in a field or even in trees without being spotted immediately from 1km away. Now at least somebody has to expect you at a certain location and has to take a closer look through binocs or a scope to be sure it is a player.

No more ironsight snipers please!

[St. Jimmy 1631]

The wording of this is a bit confusing. So 45 or 60 degrees, both? Would pressing RMB also zoom to 45 degrees? Or only 60? And then to 45 with numpad +? Because it should go to 45 deg, it would be a pain to have to pressing +/- for a continuation of the same function that has always been provided by right mouse. Although I suppose one could bind RMB to that control instead.

And I wonder about this.

 

"This way would going into iron sights actually shows the unzoomed picture which is definitely not something you would desire"

Actually that is something I would desire, as long as the sights can also zoom with RMB. Iron sight FOV should also have two zoom levels for the same reason as eye FOV. Although I suspect this might be referring to the current iron sight fixed FOV situation.

Yeah the wording is bit confusing. I guess it goes like this:

Normal view: your FoV

Aim down sights: 60

Hold down right mouse button when aiming down the sights: 45

 

The the numpad thing is just when you don't have a gun but you play with your plain sight.

 

Aiming down the sight has always zoomed a bit. Now they've decided that it's the lowest FoV value 60.

[Wh1spY 110]

Id say.. REMOVE THE ZOOM. 

[-Gews- 7443]

So now it looks like:

 

minFov = 0.4143

 

which is slightly less zoom than the mod's minFov = 0.25 or 0.54 and ARMA 3's minFov = 0.375, but much more than 0.57's minFov = 0.65. Iron sights and eyes are now both locked to this same (close enough) max zoom. Much better.

 

But iron sights could now use a larger initial field of view, which goes back to "The Campaign for Iron Sight Zoom". When you right click to enter iron sights, suddenly your FOV is reduced from the initial level (depends on FOV slider but default 91, max 116) to 75 degrees. I don't see the reason for this, one could argue while aiming down sights your peripheral vision may be somewhat impaired but that could also be argued against. It does seem to make it more janky and in many close-quarters situations one might not want to zoom at all.

 

They should also speed the zoom so it has more snap, it takes approx. 0.3 s to zoom in. Time spent slowly zooming in is wasted time. In ARMA 3 it takes 0.2 s.