Campaign 3 - 3D spotting (poll)

[Chefcook]

I have played both campaigns (with 3d on and off) and have to say, that i want 3d spotting ON!

First of all: Soflams. It was the reason why we enabled 3d spotting and still is MAJOR case. I cant count the times i was shot down from javelins before reaching the battle with a tank. I didnt had this problem last campaign.

And i still think that 3d spotting enabled or disabled will not make difference for skilled pilots, while average pilots might have a slightly better chance with 3d Spotting enabled.
In my opinion 3d Spotting Off will only widen the gap between top class fighters and average pilots. Loa and marv will spot my tank from the edge of the map. Dorito or not.

3d spotting off will increase Teamplay? I think we had very good teamplay with it on. It was still challanging.

Smoke Granades: Good point. Nothing to say here.

3D spotting OFF will only encourage even more Snipers. Last campaign we had too much of that kind (accourding to GC-Standards) and making yourself even more invisible isnt helping with that topic.

I still think that 3d Spotting isnt THAT strong. Those spots last not as long as they did at release.

Thats it for now.

Chef

[styphon]

I missclicked and voted enabled, next time please allow people to change their vote.

3D spotting is lazy. It promotes individual skill and air power over team play, not something we at gc should be aiming for. I'm not surprised LoA liked it on, and I expect the other fly boys to vote the same way, but that is the single biggest reason why 3D spotting should be off. Air should not be able to kill infantry, especially hidden infantry, so easily.

Soflams were why 3D spotting was turned on after C1, but I think they are less of an issue now.. And even if they aren't, they are still less of an issue than planes.

[mrBLUE9]

If I'm not mistaken after the last patch you cannot spot people through smoke anymore, but I'm not 100% sure. Also, regarding air, I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I've been killed by a jet in the last campaign while being infantry, so I don't see much issue there. And I disagree about team-play with 3D spotting off, I think it will be basically the same, I could make a case of it being worse with 3D spotting off because more people will camp and prone down with LMGs.

[styphon]

If I'm not mistaken after the last patch you cannot spot people through smoke anymore, but I'm not 100% sure. Also, regarding air, I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I've been killed by a jet in the last campaign while being infantry, so I don't see much issue there. And I disagree about team-play with 3D spotting off, I think it will be basically the same, I could make a case of it being worse with 3D spotting off because more people will camp and prone down with LMGs.

Campers come up on your mini map. In fact, it's easier to kill them as you can flank without a big dorito above your head warning them. Someone with an LMG will actually have to aim for people, not giant orange triangles above people's heads. I seemed together killed by jets whilst on the ground a lot, certainly more than 5 times in the whole campaign, and I heard a lot of similar complaints.

[mrBLUE9]

Campers come up on your mini map. In fact, it's easier to kill them as you can flank without a big dorito above your head warning them. Someone with an LMG will actually have to aim for people, not giant orange triangles above people's heads. I seemed together killed by jets whilst on the ground a lot, certainly more than 5 times in the whole campaign, and I heard a lot of similar complaints.

Well, you may be right, I was not here for the first campaign. I think Juffalo's idea is the best way to go though, we should try it in the first non-official battleday and then do a poll, or just continue this one with the option to change votes.

[Undisparo]

All the air guys are going to want 3D spotting on.. there is no getting around that. You get up there and spam the Q button like crazy. Nothing wrong with it. I spam the crap out of it. It all depends if we want more of a challenge. Some people do, and some people don't. Let the democracy decide! We should test it some more though so people get a feel.

[Epoxidation]

I'm poor and can't afford a computer to give me good graphics. To see a soldier medium to long range away is a struggle and 3D spotting helps tremendously to even the playing field against players who have a more luxurious rig.
Edit: b/c i'm going to persuade you damnit
Not sure who posted the thing about communication being more important with 3D off but here's my counter.
TS3 is flooded with players yelling into my ear about where i need to be and what i need to do. Last battleday it was 8 players in my teamspeak and it still felt like 2-3 people were always speaking (yelling/aggressively talking) constantly. I usually tune everyone out unless someone specifically tells me to do something. This isn't because i don't care about what they are saying, but because it is incredibly difficult to pick out information among the noise of multiple people (some of whom i can't understand with their accents) talking while i shoot whatever weapon i am using. now you want to take away the ability for players outside of our 8 man teamspeak to communicate via 3D spotting, and emphasize more yelling. Now to properly play a 64 man game i will have to reduce the audio level of my BF3 game just to distinguish what people say in TS. This is very annoying as sounds are incredibly important for BF, the flag ding that lets you know you cleared a flag, the shhhhh sound when you fully heal, the suppressed bullets that you can only hear and not see on a minimap, and countless others. All gone so that i can hear 3 people yelling at me that someone is behind me, but i can't understand that they are telling me that b/c they are all yelling. All of this is avoided if i have my BF3 audio at normal levels.

Someone said immersion in a more realistic experience
Dice made an arcade shooter, not a war simulator. I don't want to embellish on this as i feel it's not too important. I enjoy BF3 for how Dice made and balanced it. Trying to take BF3 and make it into a war sim leaves us halfway between, with neither BF3 or the war sim truly shining.

Off topic trill that bugs me - Jets at 80% health does not allow for dogfighting. This amount of health leaves jets that are surprised almost no chance to react and instead of a skilled dogfight we are left with a hit and run in which neither pilot can use skill to take out their enemy. Instead they hide below radar in the hopes of ambushing the other jet

I'm aware the jet health boost probably won't ever happen, but this thread seems hellbent on bringing skill into these battledays so that's my thought (also zennappi's thought process)

[FlashofSilver]

I think I'm going to abstain from this one. Can't make my mind up one way or another. However, I will still submit my thoughts, even though I was unable to be swayed by them to one side or another.

3D Spotting:
Voice chat is cluttered at the best of times (some have mentioned this before, and it is a very important point). I can't see that turning off 3D spotting will help at all. We'll need much, much more radio discipline to make that work, and I have no experience as to whether or not it will.

I have little to say about the pros and cons of 3D spotting itself, because by and large I see nothing at all wrong with it.

No 3D Spotting:
Contrary to what some people have been saying, I really do not often take note of spotted enemies while shooting. If I have line of sight I am already disregarding who is spotted and who is not; I shoot for the middle of the body, not the tip of an orange triangle. Going for the triangle is an invitation to miss. What I really use spotting for, is to watch enemies out of LOS so that I can flank them, or be careful of them flanking me. However, I could still do this without 3D spotting so this is not an issue.

What 3D spotting will really do is encourage air to be much more communicative and reliant on good teamwork and spotting targets themselves. Which, depending on your point of view, may be a good or bad thing. Personally (from the point of an infantry soldier who spent a lot of C2 being hammered by helicopters and jets), I think it is a very good thing indeed.

For tanks, I don't think it will be a whole lot of difference. Perhaps in some cases you were able to engage a target earlier because it was spotted, but I don't expect it to make much difference to tank-on-tank battles. Like when I am on foot, I rarely engage on the basis of spotting because there are too many unknowns - a spotted tank does not guarantee that the tank has no infantry support, and there may be another tank which has not been spotted. For tank-on-infantry, the proximity sensor does not 3D spot (to the best of my knowledge) so there'd be very little difference.

[styphon]

If there are people yelling on TS then there is a communications discipline issue. There shouldn't be people yelling anything. Communications should be clear and concise at all times. There are a lot of people who need to learn this and over time they will. If they have to shift more information, as they will with 3D spotting off, then this becomes more of an issue and armies will have to deal with it or it could become a major sticking point and could even cost them battles.

BF3 sounds should never be more important than information passed over TS3. If it is, then again comms discipline is an issue. I have my BF3 turned down so I can hear TS3, I would expect most people do. If you don't then why are you even coming to GC? Aren't you just pubbing? I'm not saying you should leave, I'm just asking what do you get out of it that's different from pubbing? Seriously, you're missing out on a large part of GC.

Unfortunately we can't affect individual vehicles health. If we were to set jets to 100% health we would set soldiers and all vehicles to 100%. Personally I'm in favour of that, but I think we're in the minority there.

[Chefcook]

All people here say, that 3d Spotting off will only affect Air.

Its not. You can STILL spot yourself (and see the doritos), but nobody else will see them. So as a Jetpilot, i still do the same stuff. Go high, press q, dive, shoot, kill.

So if you just voted 3D Spotting off, to make it harder for air, thats not the case.

[FlashofSilver]

I don't think BF3 sounds are any less important than TS3 sounds. Yes, TS3 is the backbone of our communications but information also comes to you through BF3. A lot of audio cues are present on the environment that are important to playing well, and sometimes you may hear enemies before you see them. If 3D spotting is turn off this becomes even more important as your only indication of enemies that are out of the minimap (if you haven't seen them) will be through a fellow soldier saying "enemy soldier spotted".

That, and perhaps your experience of GC is quieter than mine but there was little to no noise discipline from my army during C2. I actually had issues once or twice where there was so much talk going on I literally had to turn off one channel or another just to hear what was being said, let alone hear the game.

I'm pretty sure 3D spotting turns all doritos off, even for self-spotting.

[matsif]

I'd like to play an organized battle with it off before a decision is made, but I still don't see any reason to have it off, even with the things brought up in this thread.

[StarfisherEcho]

BF3 sounds should never be more important than information passed over TS3. If it is, then again comms discipline is an issue. I have my BF3 turned down so I can hear TS3, I would expect most people do. If you don't then why are you even coming to GC? Aren't you just pubbing? I'm not saying you should leave, I'm just asking what do you get out of it that's different from pubbing? Seriously, you're missing out on a large part of GC.

I strongly disagree with the bolded statement.

A team is a collection of individuals attempting to accomplish a common goal. If I'm holding a flag with my squad, being alive and getting a kill are extremely important tactical and sometimes even strategic advantages that I can give to my team as an individual. BF3 has a very rich audio system which can help me do both. I can hear where shots are coming from, I can hear people moving if I'm sitting still (very useful) and I can even roughly gauge what the weapon is. It's not just window dressing, it's key to making you an effective player.

If I am ordered to hold a flag, but I can't hear any game sounds because I'm getting a stream of "hey <other guy in my squad> look behind you!", I'm going to die more often and be a less effective soldier overall. GC is not won on Teamspeak, it's won on the battlefield. Teamspeak is a very powerful tool to get people in position and coordinate their efforts, but at the end of the day, you still have to win gunfights to win the game. Someone concerned about being effective is not "just pubbing", they're trying to actually contribute to their team beyond taking up a server slot and being in the right spot on the map.

So, no, Teamspeak chatter is not ALWAYS going to be more important than game sounds. If my FC is giving an order and I die because I'm listening to it and didn't hear that shooter over there, my team loses a ticket and I'm not alive to carry out the order. TS3 is a very poor crutch for communications, actually, since it ends up being used as both a radio (talking to people out of earshot) AND for normal chatter (which in an equivalent real-life game like paintball/airsoft, you'd just say to the guy standing next to you). Radio nets get congested as hell in real life, even with the best possible radio discipline, and that's without the added requirement that they carry traffic like "Hey Bob there's a guy trying to knife you!" There's only so many time slices available, and in a battle there's way more information to send than bandwidth.

3D spotting helps work around that limitation of the game world. If the game had a button which would pipe my sound out of my soldier's mouth just like I was talking, I'd be all for dropping 3D spotting. Then I'd be able to yell "Hey look left" without blowing up an important squad or FC communication on TS. But without something like that, I'm hamstrung in my ability to actually point something out to someone without taking up precious radio time. 3D spotting does have problems, but it also puts a bandaid over this issue.

[bigdcowboys22]

The TS3 vs in game sound dicipline issue is one that should be handled within you own army. I know as an FC hearing that people are turning off channels and ignoring TS is both very frustrating and looking back not very surprising. But I digress.

As someone who flew a chopper both campaigns, I can say without a doubt 3d spotting on was a much better experience. In campaign 1 I can remember a number of occations where we just grounded our chopper instead of wasting the tickets because we had no way to battle the soflams. A well placed soflam or two are difficult enough to kill with 3d spotting on, but with 3d spotting off it is virtually impossible. This was the reason for the vote to enable 3d spotting in the first place.

As multiple people have said I think you'll see the majority of air guys want it on, but remember that is not just because Marv wants to be able to kill 30+ infantry soldiers in his jet every round; there were serious balance issues with soflams.

I also understand my point affects a small subset of people, but I believe tankers had the same issues with soflams. If we vote to disable 3d spotting I think we might need to look into the soflam + jav issue again before it becomes a problem.

[Von_Krieg]

There have been a few patches since we enabled this feature. We will run a test day prior to the BFI with the settings off so we can test this. We will then have a new poll to see what everyone thinks. Please continue to discuss but remember to keep it civil.

At this point we will not use the resaults of this poll as it seems it is not setup properly. Please keep an eye out for a new poll prior to the BFI.