Change spotting

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by pnut, Sep 24, 2022.

  1. pnut

    Hi all,

    Spotting tracks your movement for approximately 10 seconds.

    Change it a spot on the map.

    So its literally a "spot". A location update. Enemy sighted at X,Y.
    • Up x 2
  2. Somentine

    Minimap, spotting, and call-outs in general.

    Can't remember who, but someone mentioned gunshots showing direction rather than spots, which while harder to implement is the first change (or just remove the mechanic all together... that's what sound, muzzle flash, tracers, and directional damage markers are for). If completely removed, suppressors can lose one of their negatives. Flash suppressors lose all their negatives. Compensator loses the further spotting. Hybrid supp go from 20% to 15% velocity nerf.

    Spotting should absolutely only be a 'spot'/dot on the radar, and only Infil should be able to track with spots (which should tell the person they are tracked and also be able to be dropped by some non-implant mechanic ie. standing still or crouching for like 2-3 seconds). Doritos should also only be visible while tracked and not spotted. Some implants should keep the tracking, like counter-intel. Sensor shield/similar should completely block all spotting and turn tracking into a spot.

    All 'motion detection' bs needs to change. Infils recon darts should be a single pulse that only spots/dots moving targets with a relatively long cd (~12-15sec). The radar tool should be a small denial tool that stops all spots/tracking. Vehicles lose it completely.

    There should be ways to call out to squad/platoon (or maybe even faction if you allow people to disable them) with visual indicators by holding Q... think Battlefield 2 or Apex. Ie. enemies, vehciles, defend, attack, etc.
    • Up x 2
  3. Demigan

    Only if spotting is expanded and there is more interplay between spots and things.

    For example:
    If the opponent remains in direct vision of any allied player, the spot moves along with the opponent until they move out of the line of sight of all allies or continuous spotting devices (like motion sensors). If LOS is broken, then if the player is spotted again within a certain time limit (lets keep it at 10 seconds) then the spot is updated. Lore-wise you can argue that the opponent's class and gear are identified so when the target is in LOS again the spot is re-applied by the HUD/internal computers of the character.
    If you spot someone and it places a spot on the map, then if that player is also in a motion spotter range then it's relative height to you is displayed next to the spot (= means same height, arrows up ^ mean higher and for increasing height levels more arrows are added similar to lower).
    Alternative/extra: Players spotted by two methods (say a Q-spot and a motion spotter/recon dart) are shown through walls and cover to anyone not currently in LOS range as a wire-frame, as long as the target is Q-spotted and in direct LOS of an ally and a motion spotter/proxydart/scoutradar/proxyradar pings it.

    Repeated spots in an area will designate the area on the map as an enemy hotspot, showing a colored box around the area they are spotted in until either allies have cleared it or no spots are made to keep the hotspot active. Hotspots could also show what kind of unit is present (vehicles, infantry, aircraft).
    Such hotspots could update once a minute, meaning they don't interfere with regular play and be visible from across the map, which makes it easier for players to guess the current location of allies, enemies and what to bring.
    Such hotspots could also tie in to secondary objectives: fighting at and especially clearing an enemy hotspot would earn you bonus XP, medals, achievements and ribbons (because it's likely you just pushed through a chokepoint or managed to secure/clear an enemy strongpoint). Just being able to select a hotspot and get a rolldown menu of things you might want to communicate (MAX CRASH on here please!) could help players quickly communicate, especially if the hotspots were also a visible entity (like a waypoint) on the "real" gameworld that players can interact with (say hold Q over the waypoint and get a radial menu to select from).
    It also lets players like squadleaders communicate more efficiently to players about things happening beyond their radar range. It's annoying if a leader is at the north end of an AMP station communicating about something he wants done there but you can't see what is happening there because you are at the south end. If there were hotspots you could better plan what and how you want to achieve something that your leader asks of you.
  4. Somentine

    Repeated spots creating hot spots sounds okayish.

    Elevation on tracking is needed, only if tracking/spotting itself is heavily nerfed.

    Dropping tracking from LoS would be potentially okay, but a lot more costly (rather than just isSpotted -> displaying their coords and enabling doritios for a set time, you now would have to have it check position constantly and compare it to others), and still leaves people with no way to truly drop a spot.

    Infil recon needs massive nerfs, not buffs. Giving people literal wallhacks and minimap hacks is probably one of the worst things to ever do.
  5. Demigan

    Dorito's dont render when the target isnt visible and out of LOS, so this information is already tracked. All you need is something to ask "would my character render a dorito for any enemy currently facing me? If yes, my position is tracked".
  6. Somentine

    They are technically on screen even if you can't see them , tied to the model, and it's why you can see doritos even when you can't see the model (ie. crouching behind a window at certain angles).

    It's not so simple. As it is, you essentially have the client of the person spotted simply sending out a tracker of their coordinates to all player's minimap when spotted rather than just allies, and enables the nameplate and dorito. What you want to do is now have them toggle on and off based on if they are in any LoS to either the player(s) that spotted them, or all enemy players(?). Now you need to keep track of your coords and send out a listener for a function similar to Q spot, but automatically, for all players.
  7. Your Secret Admirer

    We could also go to the other direction, in which Q spotting in 3D space shows a 3D model glowing through walls, in this way being spotted has significant penalties.

    Additionally, being Q spotted will prevent you from using stealth similar to how hunter's Mark works in World of Warcraft.

    As a counter to this, area motion tracking is removed entirely, in this way it's not simply parking a valkyrie, or flash and hoping you're not discovered, it actually requires participation from the playerbase
  8. Demigan

    It should still be relatively simple.

    A player behind a wall isnt rendered, as he's not visible. He is tracked ofcourse but as long as nothing of his model is rendered on the player's screen you could track that right? So you basically ask every player if their PC is rendering a part of an opponent's model and as long as that is a "yes" alongside a Q-spot being "yes", the player is tracked. That would at worst have twice the latency system of delay before it is updated, which isnt that big a deal if you assume its a lore thing about players needing to send the information.
  9. Mechwolf

    If we just removed all spotting from the game (as the general consensus seems to be leaning) what would the infiltrators get as a utility?
  10. Mechwolf


    Infiltrators having a passive LOS spot when they're scoping in would be nice, tracking multiple targets depending on range of scope, so you can't just get a 6x scope and light up an entire base, but you can probably spot for 2 small buildings simultaneously at almost any distance.
  11. Mechwolf

    I understand spotting tracking people around corners doesn't make sense. But then again, as soon as somebody is in a building, how immune to radar should they be?
  12. Somentine

    Kind of. What you are asking for is to have every previously spotted player constantly checking if it's okay to drop the spot, which means it has to send out and listen for packets constantly. Even ignoring the automatic re-spotting, just dropping the spot requires x*number of people within render range checks every x time. The idea itself isn't bad, just think it's not worth the possible performance hit + dev time.
  13. Demigan

    But this happens continuously anyway! Every packet already contains your looking direction, velocity, currently held weapon, if you are firing/reloading or not, position, cosmetics, health&shield (shown by implants/nearby allies), your current class, standing/crouching/jumping etc.

    The server checks "is this player spotted yes/no", if yes then the player's position becomes visible. All that needs to happen is one tiny addition of "is the player being rendered on an enemy team yes/no" to be added. The whole point of the latency system is to avoid the exponential increase of packets by gathering more data and sending a larger packet periodically instead. Adding one "yes/no" check to it wont be a big deal.
  14. Somentine

    And how 'tiny' do you think checking if they are rendered is? The reason spotting works and is so small is because it is only on user command and after that the spotted player's client handles the rest. I think you're underestimating what it is you are asking to do with this mechanic. Even if you copy 90% of the spotting function, you now have to basically auto spot every enemy to check if they are already spotted, at which point the person has probably spotted them again anyway, and if you aren't using the spotting radius and instead have it include the whole FoV then you run into dumb things like spotting through tiny cracks or barely visible rendered models on-top of the former issue.
  15. Demigan

    Very tiny, as it would 99% be clientside on a process the client is already doing.

    all players that are within their render distance have their packers send to all relevant players (already a method where something tracks relative distances to see who should receive the packets or not). These packets are turned into players with all their locations, directions, velocities, actions, classes, cosmetics and loadouts already attached so that if said player moves away from cover and into view your PC knows perfectly what to render even before the next packet arrives.

    So your PC tracks the player's position in the world, checks what needs to be rendered according to that position and looking direction and populates it with any and all players within view.

    Now you just add one more task, not only does your PC check if or when a particular player needs to be rendered with all his information extrapolated, your PC will also add one answer to the packet, namely "which, if any, players are you rendering right now?". Something that basically already happens in reverse when they track which players could potentially be renderable based on your position AND the variable render ranges.

    In short: add to the packet the ID tag of any player you are rendering, the server checks if that player is currently in the time period of a Q-spot and then tells all players in render range and on the same faction "this blip is tracked".
  16. Somentine

    Until big fights happen, or even 'smaller' fights where all players are crammed into roughly a 50x50. You see it constantly with models not correctly rendering and popping-in. Adding even a smidge more things to process lowers the threshold for a bad experience.


    Yes, but no. Again, yes your pc is doing a lot, but first of all, this game already has FPS issues with the PC being heavily taxed. Second, it isn't about checking whether they are rendered or not, as the PC has to do that anyway for the game to play. The taxing issue is that you would need to check these players constantly for something that was previously incredibly minor. Not only that, how do you think the spot is removed? You can't use the spotted player's client to do that, as they could be rendered to a player that isn't rendered to them; they need to listen for an OK from all players within range to drop the blip/spot OR they would need to set it on a very short timer and need the enemy clients to constantly send auto spots; one way or the other, you need this information being constantly checked and sent for each player, for each enemy. Sure, 12-24 fights might not be affected much, but it would get exponentially worse the higher you go.


    And it does it again, and again, and again, and again, constantly, automatically, for every player, for every enemy player.
  17. Demigan

    But it isnt! Its one tiny addition to the packets send! Its not a "constant check and recheck", this is just a few extra lines on the client which just lists which players are rendered (which it already does) and then send these to the server, where the server already tracks every player who is spotted and sends that knowledge to players within render range but now checks it against "is this player on the list" before saying players can track their blip on the radar.

    This is basically as "hard" as adding another attachment slot to infantry weapons in the game and keeping track of that (or just give every weapon access to UB weapons).
  18. Somentine

    Very simply, it doesn't work as you think it does.

    However, I'm honestly done arguing that; even using how you think it works, you still have every player sending out more info to every player, that gets exponentially worse the more players are in the area, and you still have more processing tasks for each client, that also get exponentially worse the more players are in the area. All for a mechanic that isn't a bad idea, but doesn't really add much to the game compared to the current, simple spotting system, or an even simpler nerfed/changed one.
  19. Demigan

    But that is the WHOLE POINT of the latency system! It DOESNT go up exponentially with every player! Thats why PS2 can have so many players active in the same area!

    And DUH that the amount of information goes up, you are adding something. But the AMOUNT is microscopic. The server sends you a list of players with all their information about location, class, loadout etc for any players you MIGHT render and the player sends his own information plus a list of players that he DOES render. Thats it!
  20. Somentine

    ?

    The reason PS2 can have so many players is because it trusts the clients way more than most games. Idk what you mean by latency 'system'.


    It isn't microscopic, especially not if you are constantly sending a list of players that your client has rendered??????

    You keep forgetting what you were asking for:

    Yes, if you restricted it to simply removing the spot on the enemies' clients individually it wouldn't really take much. That isn't what you are asking for here. You are asking to make sure that this spotted player is not in LoS of any player to drop the spot. That means it either needs an OK or NO from every player within range of the list of players, or another way would be to auto drop spot if it doesn't receive a NO after X time (as in how it works now, just shorter). The first is reliable but costly, the second is neither and would make for some pretty questionable experiences (aka, why even introduce the mechanic if you aren't going to do it right?).

    Either way, you are now constantly, on a set interval, sending the extra list of players you've 'spotted', which before was on average 1-2 every few seconds at worst, to the server for it to parse and send out to the correct clients. Now image you are sitting as an Infil at Nasons watching 15-20 dudes camp the tunnel. You, ALONE, are sending that they are ALL still in LoS and need to be spotted constantly, every server tick. Now add a second player who peaks for 2 seconds and sees 8 or 9 of them. They have sent that info out 3 or 4 times in that 2 seconds. And so on, and so forth. Never mind the added client computation for this already CPU stressed game.

    If you honestly think that this would have 'microscopic impact' after the above, then okay, you're entirely correct.