Removal of Crew Spotting range in Realistic Battles (With Poll)

Game Discussion General Discussion
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Over the years, various maps have been introduced to the game, some larger than others, new vehicles have been added, ones whose engagement distances aren’t hundreds but thousands of meters. However one thing that has mostly remained unchanged is the spotting system and the network synchronization for long range targets.

This, understandably so, has caused some… inconveniences. First off, in some larger maps, it is possible to be staring directly at an enemy but they will simply be invisible because they are outside your crew’s spotting range (732m to 1626m, depending on level. This value is multiplied by 3 times when in binoculars or gunner view) while they can see you because they are in their gunsight or they have a higher level crew.

This can cause frustration as dying to an enemy that is invisible because you had a low crew level (especially for the vast majority of players that use premium vehicles) is simply unfair.

In some extreme cases (for maps such as Red Desert), you could be staring directly at an enemy tank through your gunsight and they will still be invisible if your crew’s keen vision skill level is low enough, making long range engagements practically impossible.

And as almost every player that has used top tier SPAA or has flown jets with powerful PD radars has noticed, planes tend to just become invisible at certain ranges but you can still clearly see their contrails or the smoke produced by their engines.

This issue can be very easily solved by removing the maximum spotting distance from Realistic and Simulator battles. But then what’s the point of even leveling up this skill you may ask… The answer is simple. Similar to games like Gunner Heat PC, the commander (as long as he is alive) could call out enemy vehicles at various ranges, depending on your crew skill. (Within audible engine range at a 360 scope and within LOS at a slightly increased range).

And on the topic of network synchronization, almost everyone has noticed enemies rubberbanding at longer range and desynced turret positions. The latter part is especially visible if you are in an aircraft and an SPAA is shooting at you where instead of the tracers following you smoothly, you can see the turret just “snap” every second or so, something very noticeable because of the solid straight line of tracers that “jumps” every second or so.

This will also not give an advantage to cheaters, on the contrary it will remove one of their advantages. While the game’s anti-cheat doesn’t send any data to your game about enemies that are outside engine sound range or outside line of sight, it still sends data for players outside your keen vision view which means that cheaters can see you even outside their keen vision range. (You can test this yourself if you wish)

What should happen to the keen vision skill?
  • Removed completely for RB/SB (Unrealistic)
  • Render range replaced by callout range
  • Nothing
0 voters

(Removing the keen vision skill is very unrealistic as it is a core part of the game, plus it’d mean that everyone who spent time and money on upgrading that skill would just lose it all)

Depending on the outcome, I may make a proper suggestion about this in the appropriate section

14 Likes
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Although it is an interesting idea, the removal of keen vision would make the task of detecting ESP cheaters literally impossible.

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That’s not how keen vision works whatsoever, keen vision only limits max render range (for which data already is being sent to the client so an esp hacker can see regardless) and won’t change how the built-in anti cheat works (which straight up does not send any data of players that you have no LOS on to your client)

tl;dr it won’t give cheaters an advantage, instead it will remove their advantage of being able to see enemies at longer ranges that player without cheats couldnt see

The game is structured so even if a cheater has ESP, if the server knows you have no LOS of an enemy or are outside the audible range of their engine, the server will simply send no data to you about that enemy

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That is an assumption, not a fact. Unless you’re a Gaijin employee.

So your solution is to give everyone such advantage, so we can’t differentiate between who’s cheating or not. Excellent. It will fix the cheaters issue by a snap.
The only outcome I can see from this is a new era of witch hunts against cheaters where good players may be banned because of it.

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You are free to go test this yourself or find an article from gaijin explaining how the anticheat works
:)

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Yeah, sure, and you’re free to assume that Gaijin explains everything to you as transparently as they can, like on the matchmaking page of the wiki, which doesn’t elaborate anything else than the Battle rating system and how they elaborate games on up-tiers or down-tiers depending on the lineup you’re using, but they entirely miss the part where teams are elaborated based on the average team position of each player and an average for each team. Like, your point is really hollow.

Transparency exists or not (depending on the case) for a reason.

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-1, teammates only react to visual cues on their screen not numbers. Perhaps for sim though.

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Curious, why?

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I gave my reason.

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I’m confused, how can a teammate react to a visual cue on their stream if they can’t see anything

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Would you mind clarifying? I’m kinda confused

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I think he’s the one who’s confused. All his comments under other posts shoe the same detachment from reality.

Back to the original post though, I doubt Gajin is gonna do anything abt this awful feature unless we get a large portion of the playerbase to cause an uproar.

Gajin no doubtedly has numbers on how much GE is bought for the purpose of buying crew skills.

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Yeah that’s why I said it is unrealistic to remove it completely and offered a viable alternative

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Even in lower tiers this can be a noticeable annoyance, and it only gets worse the higher you go. +1

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Yup, both for planes and tanks

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It’s just WoT-ish mechanic… definitely no use + not realistic, not even useful in detecting hacks.

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Yeah, it’s left over from when engagement distances were ~1km maximum

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You might consider adding the tag “Ground” to this thread. Same as in an eventual suggestion. That would be great! 👍

Whilst i see that your content is focused on Ground RB - Air RB is affected too but in different parts:

  1. Appearance of markers
  2. Rendering distance in general

So whilst the marker issue should stay as it is (as you get rewarded with increased ranges if you invest SL for an expert crew - and time for getting the ace qualification) the rendering distances for the dots is way too low.

This might be irrelevant for jet players, but at prop BRs it is an issue as spotting dots long before markers determines how you set up your fights.

Have a good one!

1 Like
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Why? It’s both for Ground and Air

Even in air, aircraft will de-render at longer ranges as you said yourself

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Again, i am fully with you regarding rendering distances - but markers are a different story.

Imho the main difference between Air & Ground RB are the markers. Keen vision for Ground RB does not distinguish between markers and dots, that’s why it should be looked on separately - as dots have far greater ranges than the marker triggering distance.

  1. Spotting dots (=no markers) is imho independent from the rendering distance of markers (red dot & name/plane) - especially if you consider contrails and weather effect. The standard Air RB marker range is 3,8 km - with an aced plane and a max level crew you get 7,6 km.

  2. It is no problem to spot dots of stuff like Bv 238s (depending on maps) even without contrails from 20 km + (from below vs a bright sky) - but the marrker appears at much shorter ranges.

  3. Being the first guy with a marker is (at prop BRs) usually death sentence - so the appearance of markers earlier than your opponent is an incentive to master a plane and get an ace - whilst the dot rendering issue is extremely annoying and needs to be fixed.

Have a good one!

Impact of dots an markers

2 examples regarding differences markers and dots:

  1. If you have played on Pacific maps you might know that the contrail alt on these maps is in (almost) every case 6.500 meters (so higher than on standard maps). In addition there is often mist/humidity in the air and you have often a very thin cloud layer between 6 - 6.3 km. T

    This weather strongly reduces the appearance of dots AND markers.Why? The weather makes the dots nearly invisible. I watched a hell of replays sneaking towards or away from enemies - i had a marker and they not - and even if i paused the replay it was incredibly hard to spot my own dot from the enemy’s view & perspective.

    You can stay a few meters below the contrail alt and stalk enemies above contrail alt (they don’t get a marker from you if you stay below the cloud layer) or you can extend if you want to out-fuel them.
    In such cases keeping the marker ranges as they are is rewarding your efforts with a specific aircraft.

  2. In case you want to have some fun or you want to fulfil BP tasks (like kill X amount of players with bombs of X weight) in Air RB with props you need a hell of experience to achieve this with a classic bomber from high alt - as the dot of an enemy player heading to their small or main airfield (their markers just disappear if they extend from hostile forces) are not visible if you perform orbital strikes.

    So you have to estimate the time they need until they reach their airfield - and estimate their repair times and to consider the time your bomb needs from drop to impact.

    Even as i would guess that i have scored ~130-150 kills like that you might agree that it makes sense if you could see the dots - but the planes are invisibl- even you use the zoom view from your bomb sight and the enemy is yellow (P-63) or bright red (Yak-3).

Occasionally you get an indicator if you see enemy tracers if some guys try to slow down - but no dots (even in very rare perfect weather conditions).

1 Like