Vehicle/Flight Performance

Alright, we've gotten some more feedback, so thanks to everyone who posted on Reddit, Twitter, etc.

Based on both metrics and feedback, we've decided to go ahead and hotfix the flight changes from PTS. We recognize that the feedback has been mixed, but overall have judged the changes to bring us closer to the original goal of making flight feel as close to it was pre-changes as possible. This change brings the original dampening code into the new system and makes our simulations for this code identical to old live. What this really does is fix the issues we were seeing when using multiple controls at once, like pitch and yaw.

The hotfix fixes an issue with acceleration that is most noticeable in the Sunderer, as well as some of the other physics issues that have been felt with vehicles.

With this update we are going to focus our intention going forward on specific issues versus the overall flight model. We want to improve controls and feel based on what’s currently available and make flying as enjoyable as possible. For example, we are getting a lot of reports that aiming is difficult, so we will be looking into that as an independent issue instead of modeling changes against previous Live data.

Thanks again and keep on pointing out where flight and all vehicle controls can be improved.

Nice.


So, anything about Out of Render Distance Infantry AV coming in the future?

yay!

whens the next stream?

Will this again bring analog control back to those of us who (have always) use a controller to drive with?

Since the dreaded patch analog vehicle steering changed to being a forced key based system (meaning: move controller joystick a fraction one way or other and vehicle steers full lock left or right, like a key) which is unlike analog style controllers (of which the DS3 controller also has) where you can hold a direction mid rake, or full, or a small amount to correctly steer your path.

With 100% left/right forced steering vehicle play is now twitchy and imprecise compared to the sure footed analog steering I've driven on since launch, (in Harassers, I'm like BBurness, I love my Harasser combat). Its completely changed the driving experience for the worst and its not something we can reskill on, its lost a whole band of manoeuvrability.

Driving is an analog experience (how would your car drive home change if steering only went 100% full lock or straight on?) and just because it can be crudely accomplished with keys doesnt mean it feels great driving that way.

Many players only have keyboards and dont know the difference between key and controller driving but I do! Ive had so much fun driving Harassers on analog and cannot understand why you would now force the analog axis input on my controller to act like keys now, especially when you are programming for the DS3 now.

Does that not have enough buttons that we need the analog axis to be keys too?

I dont want to go on, this is clearly a minority issue (can PM if you need more info at any level about using controllers for pc gaming, ive used them for years, even infantry sometimes not just driving and flying) but as you, DBG, intend to move towards controllers and not away its certainly a subtle quality issue and relevant to this cycle of development....analog driving needs help!!

Sounds great, also why cant the rep/ammo Galaxies you have planned and potentially be cancerous be just placed on Valkyries? Meta win + no cancer + fun useful drop ships.

You haven't been on the PTS have you?

Also Those modules wouldn't make sense what so ever on the valk.



Now getting on topic............



The changes were great!

just flew a little bit with the scythe and oposing to what i last wrote in the PTS flight feedback thread and on reddit, to me these controls feel pretty much the same as the original flight controls used to. This is probably due to the input lag i had on PTS, which i don't have on live now.
The controls are actually so similar, that unfortunately even the "Deadzone" for slow mouse movements is back. To quote myself from the old PTS feedback thread:

In fact this may not be a deadzone, but is probably the acceleration / dampening code. This behaviour may be part of the reason so many ppl now report aiming difficulties, since they all forgot that this terrible mechanic was in the original controls as well, or just got used to the (so much more intuitive) linear responsiveness around the zero point.
So if there is a way to remove this behaviour from the dampening code, or at least straightening out the acceleration curve around the zero point, alot of ppl (me included) would be happy!

On a side note:
i can't hold myself back to point out, that if you just held back the changes from live until now and now patched the original controls to this version. You would have caused soooo much less damage! These controls probably are like almost the same as the old ones (but i can't compare them anymore). But with the version you pushed live in the first place, everybody first raged because of the huge changes, then got used to them and now everybody is raging again because you change the system so much again. But as everyone got used to the new system and forgot how the original one was, barely anyone realises that it actually is pretty much the same again as it used to be and rages on reddit about acceleration even though it was in the original controls as well...

Hi Luke, I like that you guys are trying to fix what you've ruined before. But I am very disappointed to see that all the attention seem to be around flight controls, which only affects a very small portion of the playerbase. Did you guys realize that you basically changed everything in this game?

A few examples:

All Vehicles drive different than before, especially Harassers regularly flip on the top now.
All Vehicle guns (especially MBT's) aim completely different than before, they are sluggish and it's a pain in the butt to hit anything moving.
Snipers don't seem to have any drop anymore, furthermore the scopes are absolutely misaligned due to the wrong zeroing of the scopes, good luck hitting anything on the field nowadays.
General Infantry weapons behave completely different, also no drop.
My beloved pounders who strongly work with slow bullet speed and high drop have changed their arc and speed completely, thank you for ruining 2.5years of experience with those weapons - I feel like a BR1 trying to hit stuff nowadays.

All these examples affect literally every player everyday and should also be looked into ASAP. I can't believe you are guys are still only caring about the ~20 skyknights on each server.

Yeah. I just haven't noticed the vehicle changes at all for anything I drive, including Flash, Harasser, Sunderer and MBTs. Sure, Harassers skate around sometimes like they're on ice, but that's been happening to Harassers since the dawn of time if you're overturning it. You'd think with after having put in at least a good 100 hours on all 3 MBTs since the last update, I would have noticed something off about MBT performance. Something drastic enough to warrant complaining to the devs about constantly over multiple reposted threads over days and weeks.

But I don't see it, haven't seen it, and don't expect to see it.

Only thing I've noticed off about vehicles is that turret shake bug.

I dunno. I guess I'm blind or autistic. Or if my MBT slips down a slope, I just correct it and go back up on a shallow incline, because that slope was obviously too steep for an MBT.

Really don't have the kind of free time in this game to stop what I'm doing every few times every few hours my MBT won't hold a hill or drift in the slightest because I'm apparently driving the thing like it's Fast and Furious to alt-tab out and go complain to Reddit about it.

There's Sunderers need killing, and the barest hint of sliding around isn't going to stop things that need to explode from exploding.

Cool, I cant wait for my sundy to be able to go faster again than a kid on a tricycle.

It would appear you have noble goals in soliciting feedback and suggestions from us loyal PC players who have paid your bills for the last 2 years (those of us you're so quick to throw under a bus to chase a few console peasant dollars). To that end, I have the perfect solution to these 2 stated goals.

REVERT THE CHANGES. The answer was there all along! I'm surprised you hadn't arrived at the same result independently. Doing so will not just bring you closer to the controls being as close to pre-change as possible, it will go above that lofty (yet misguided) goal and make then EXACTLY the same as they were pre-change. That is to say, not bad, not unresponsive, linear and not (most importantly) unfun.



Hop to it then! I look forward to the new and improved control scheme in action (again).

So are developers looking at bringing infantry like auto aim assist for ESF nose guns?

Apparently this patch fixed Vanguard/Lightning/Prowler turrets but screwed up Magrider controls.

No it didn't, it's still like trying to steer a shopping trolley with crooked wheels after having done 5 double tequila shots.

THIS.

The patch has brought "original" controls back and now people started to complain how it's worse than previous patch. While almost noone remembers that there was a big (and is now) accel. curve in ESF aiming . I too would be for lowering the accel. curve and its max. values close to "zero" (or removing it completely).

Good thing is that accel. allows one to pitch over large angle without running out of mouse mat space and have high precision when pixel aiming. Many players don't get this purpose of accel.

Magrider turning/aiming is way way off, small adjustments to horizontal aim are unresponsive. Large adjustment to horizontal aim (pivoting the Mag) grossly overshoot the point at which the mouse stops moving. This results in 3-4 readjustments to aim at a mid-distance target, and if that target is moving it's doubly difficult. This would be bad enough if it were all turrets for all MBTs, but apparently the vanguard and prowler (and lightning turrets) feel back to normal, while the Mag is borked. Please fix this.

I would like an option to increase the sensitivity for yaw in an aircraft. It feels sluggish to me.

thank you all people on reddit and twitter,

The liberator yaw has a new added inertia which makes it very slidy and hard to aim and fly. I have to push ADADADAD until I can center the shot with the lib nose gun. The momentum seems to be like the magrider one, but don't quote me on that.

Using joystick on PC I couldn't notice any change using a ESF. There is a "non-linearity" and a "multiplier" which make the aim fast targets almost impossible, no matter what sensitivity you try (and I tried from 0.1 to 1.0).

Aim for ground is hard as well, but since they are slow because distance, you can manage.

The big problem I see is that no matter what the devs do to improve aim with controls, the air combat today never will bring enough fun, because fly in circles trying aim someone, without any maneuver, is boring, and you can't do "airplane maneuvers" because your opponent just need stop in the air and use the huge nosegun range to destroy your "real plane skill".