Zoom

[PhoenixDragon]

That doesn't apply in the field under combat conditions where soldieres are doing their best not being seen by using camouflage and terrain.
Due to the games fast turn rate the relative small FOV doesn't matter as the player can scan the entire 360 degrees in a second or two negating any negative feature of the lower FOV at higher zoom. Zoom plus high turn rate gives players a higher situational awareness than no zoom and the same turn rate and much more so than in real life under combat conditions.

You're really going to say that having a narrower FoV than real-life, poorer detail resolution than real-life, complete lack of peripheral vision rather than the simply decreased peripheral resolution you get in real-life, and the need to turn your entire view to scan over the same area you could see naturally in real-life, somehow results in better situational awareness than real-life? Every single aspect of vision in-game is worse than real-life, with the trade-offs that have to be made to portray the scene on the technology we have now. The benefit of zoom is that we get to choose which trade-off we want at the moment.

Look at a german machinegunner behind the emplaced MG34, that gun is approximately 1,2 meters long and it is clear that the soldier behind is only just slightly taller than the gun's length.

With his knees bent, body is bent forward, and his head lowered. Try comparing him while he's standing up. Better yet, find an example from the actual game, rather than stills produced pre-release. There might be a few objects that are off-scale, but in general it's pretty good.

 

[Atomskytten]

You're really going to say that having a narrower FoV than real-life, poorer detail resolution than real-life, complete lack of peripheral vision rather than the simply decreased peripheral resolution you get in real-life, and the need to turn your entire view to scan over the same area you could see naturally in real-life, somehow results in better situational awareness than real-life? Every single aspect of vision in-game is worse than real-life, with the trade-offs that have to be made to portray the scene on the technology we have now. The benefit of zoom is that we get to choose which trade-off we want at the moment.

So you disagree that RO2 provides the player with better situational awareness than RO:OST?
I myself enjoy far more situational awareness in RO2 than I ever did in RO:OST and for me that takes away some of the gaming experience.

With his knees bent, body is bent forward, and his head lowered. Try comparing him while he's standing up. Better yet, find an example from the actual game, rather than stills produced pre-release. There might be a few objects that are off-scale, but in general it's pretty good.

Meassure the gun's lenght and the body of the soldier, they are identical. On my screen I meassured the MG34 to be 115mm and the total length of the body to be 115-117mm which gives the height of the soldier to be approximately 122-125 cm or 4 feet. Even with a meassuring inaccuarcy of 5% the soldier's height will still not exeed 130cm which makes the soldier avatar a dwarf, rather than an average soldier of about 170cm, and thus not to scale.
Which again means that it doesn't matter what level of zoom the game has as the soldier will always be too small no matter at what range he is observed from.

 

[Recoup]

So you disagree that RO2 provides the player with better situational awareness than RO:OST?
I myself enjoy far more situational awareness in RO2 than I ever did in RO:OST and for me that takes away some of the gaming experience.

Meassure the gun's lenght and the body of the soldier, they are identical. On my screen I meassured the MG34 to be 115mm and the total length of the body to be 115-117mm which gives the height of the soldier to be approximately 122-125 cm or 4 feet. Even with a meassuring inaccuarcy of 5% the soldier's height will still not exeed 130cm which makes the soldier avatar a dwarf, rather than an average soldier of about 170cm, and thus not to scale.
Which again means that it doesn't matter what level of zoom the game has as the soldier will always be too small no matter at what range he is observed from.

I have to agree with Atomskytten, the immersion factor of RO:OST was that you couldn't see every detail in front of you. Just because zooming narrows the field of vision doesn't mean you can't, I dunno, turn your head to see what's in your peripheral? It's like giving every soldier a pair of binoculars, ones that suddenly give you eagle vision.

You can't pop your eyes out of your head to see further in front of you. You just can't. I can understand using L+Shift to control breathing and reduce sway, but the nature of zooming in on the target just seems silly.

 

[Sarkis.]

Atomskytten. You have little understanding of three-dimensional perspective. You can't just go measuring things as they will not give you correct values.

Recoup. You have little understanding of the zoom function. I advise both not to continue in further argumentation with Phoenix Dragon, as he has much more understanding. Still, he will probably be a gentleman and will try and explain again?

 

[Mekhazzio]

It's like giving every soldier a pair of binoculars, ones that suddenly give you eagle vision.

That would be a decent analogy...if the starting visual acuities of the game soldier and real person are roughly approximate. The problem, of course, is that they are very much not. A standard 20/20 eyeball has much sharper "resolution" than a current-day HD monitor, by an order of magnitude. It takes a very large amount of zoom (much larger than RO2 allows) before the monitor can display things at an eyeball level of detail for a given range. But, of course, you can't make a huge amount of zoom the default, or it would be impossible to play the game at anything but long ranges...so it's variable.

It's not giving the soldiers binoculars, it's giving them glasses to fix their legally-blind horrible eyesight.

 

[Atomskytten]

Atomskytten. You have little understanding of three-dimensional perspective. You can't just go measuring things as they will not give you correct values.

Recoup. You have little understanding of the zoom function. I advise both not to continue in further argumentation with Phoenix Dragon, as he has much more understanding. Still, he will probably be a gentleman and will try and explain again?

Thank you for insulting my intelligence...

 

[Atomskytten]

That would be a decent analogy...if the starting visual acuities of the game soldier and real person are roughly approximate. The problem, of course, is that they are very much not. A standard 20/20 eyeball has much sharper "resolution" than a current-day HD monitor, by an order of magnitude. It takes a very large amount of zoom (much larger than RO2 allows) before the monitor can display things at an eyeball level of detail for a given range. But, of course, you can't make a huge amount of zoom the default, or it would be impossible to play the game at anything but long ranges...so it's variable.

It's not giving the soldiers binoculars, it's giving them glasses to fix their legally-blind horrible eyesight.

Not true, the picture we get in RO2 is not what the human eye would see in real life as only a small area in the center of the field of view provides a sharp and clear image while the rest is unfocused - the picture we have in RO2 and all FPS is a fully focused and clear image over the entire F.O.V. just like what you would see through a binocular thus the binocular analogy is correct.

 

[r5cya]

I

You can't pop your eyes out of your head to see further in front of you. You just can't. I can understand using L+Shift to control breathing and reduce sway, but the nature of zooming in on the target just seems silly.

you do know, that even if you could do that, (some people can) it won't make you see farther,. right?
making comments like that, will only make anything said in the future seem weaker. there's a few people here who can't say the sky is blue anymore and be taken seriously. don't end up one of them. you're better than that.

Atomskyten. i guess you misread the quote you posted. i'll re-post the part that hung you up.
"if the starting visual acuities of the game soldier and real person are roughly approximate. The problem, of course, is that they are very much not."
kinda kills your lead-in of your post. "Not true, the picture we get in RO2 is not what the human eye would see in real life."

 

[Mekhazzio]

the picture we have in RO2 and all FPS is a fully focused and clear image over the entire F.O.V.

First, it's not fully focused, it's extremely poor acuity, and second, you're still receiving the information from a monitor with your eyeballs rather than plugging in with a cyberjack, so it's not gaining you any peripheral acuity (not to mention that you can't even "unzoom" far enough to -get- peripheral vision...)

 

[Sarkis.]

Thank you for insulting my intelligence...

Thank you for insulting everyone else's intelligence then. Your point about soldiers measuring 1.2 meters was unintelligent, but don't take that as an offense to your whole intelligence.

 

[Atomskytten]

Thank you for insulting everyone else's intelligence then. Your point about soldiers measuring 1.2 meters was unintelligent, but don't take that as an offense to your whole intelligence.

Then please enlighten us with the true size of the soldier.

Note the size of the soldier and the MG34 mounted on the Lafette 34:

http://www.bergflak.com/images/DSC07846.JPG

then compare with the ingame picture:

http://www.heroesofstalingrad.com/w..._screenshot_redoctoberfactory_german_mg_b.jpg

 

[PhoenixDragon]

Meassure the gun's lenght and the body of the soldier, they are identical.

I could repeat my previous arguments that you apparently ignored, pointing out how the soldier is hunched over, knees bent, head down, and how you'd need to account for that. Or I could repeat the suggestion to find an example in-game instead of a pre-production still. I could even point out that some objects might not be rendered to proper scale, and that basing your assumption off one single datapoint of unknown reliability is questionable at best.

Or I could just get a screenshot myself and prove you completely wrong.

Here you go.

Assuming the MG34 is 120cm long, a straight pixel measurement would put the soldier at about 2 meters. Account for the fact that the MG34 is slightly further away, and he seems just about right.

 

[Atomskytten]

What I want to show with my post is that the in game soldier avatar is too short. From the ingame picture we see that the soldier standing with slightly bended knees barely is abel to look over the gun on its tripod while the picture with a real life soldier kneeling over the gun on the tripod has at least more than 40 cm relative to the gun.

 

[r5cya]

you're just not reading what PhoenixDragon is posting, are you?
p.s. if you notice, TWI goofed on that mg mounts height and length. but it's a moot point as it's a pre-production still and not a pic from in the game like he posted.
someone already posted the avatars height, from the game's code and i assure you, they are not 4 foot tall.

 

[Atomskytten]

I could repeat my previous arguments that you apparently ignored, pointing out how the soldier is hunched over, knees bent, head down, and how you'd need to account for that. Or I could repeat the suggestion to find an example in-game instead of a pre-production still. I could even point out that some objects might not be rendered to proper scale, and that basing your assumption off one single datapoint of unknown reliability is questionable at best.

Or I could just get a screenshot myself and prove you completely wrong.

Here you go.

Assuming the MG34 is 120cm long, a straight pixel measurement would put the soldier at about 2 meters. Account for the fact that the MG34 is slightly further away, and he seems just about right.

Not the same picture, please use the one I used.

 

[Sarkis.]

What I want to show with my post is that the in game soldier avatar is too short. From the ingame picture we see that the soldier standing with slightly bended knees barely is abel to look over the gun on its tripod while the picture with a real life soldier kneeling over the gun on the tripod has at least more than 40 cm relative to the gun.

Look at the picture and the in game pic. And you will notice the tripod is adjustable in height

 

[hockeywarrior]

Before I post I want to reiterate that I am speaking in abstract and not literal terms, which means that I am putting my arguments in a broad conceptual context. There are plenty of detailed essays in this thread that I think totally miss the larger point.

Holding your breath shouldn't make you zoom 2X as much as before. What it should is make you relaxed and able to shoot straighter. What on earth is going on here? What gets me off the most, since this is probably not going to ever change, is how dramatic each tranisition in the zooms there is.

Yes, this is an aspect of the system I have never understood. I like a little bit of zoom when you go into ironsights, as it represents the soldier having a lower field of view as they focus on a distant target. But the extra superficial zoom that comes from "controlled breathing" is difficult to justify. The whole purpose of the "controlled breathing" feature is to make distant shots easier to make, just as does in real life. So what's the point of adding extra zoom? How does controlling one's breathing change the sight picture or alter my aiming focus?

It doesn't. It makes no sense from a realism stand point, but more importantly, the gameplay certainly doesn't benefit from such an addition either. See one of my bajillioin thread topics and posts both in the regular and beta testing forums on this point if you want to know my detailed opinions on this topic. But like you said, this will never be changed. Even I will admit it's beating a dead horse, no matter how right you may be.

 

[PhoenixDragon]

Not the same picture, please use the one I used.

...what? That's got to be the most bizarre and nonsensical objection I've seen here in a long time, and that's saying something. Of course it's not the same picture. It's a picture from in-game. I just loaded up the game, had Mekh drop an MG and lay next to it, and took a screenshot. That is the size of a MG34 compared to a soldier.

Your picture is a staged loading-screen image made pre-release. Mine is a screenshot made in-game with current content. If you want to find something to compare that supposedly shows improper sizes, find one in-game.

 

[r5cya]

...what? That's got to be the most bizarre and nonsensical objection I've seen here in a long time, and that's saying something. Of course it's not the same picture. It's a picture from in-game. I just loaded up the game, had Mekh drop an MG and lay next to it, and took a screenshot. That is the size of a MG34 compared to a soldier.

Your picture is a staged loading-screen image made pre-release. Mine is a screenshot made in-game with current content. If you want to find something to compare that supposedly shows improper sizes, find one in-game.

can't do that. it blows his whole argument out of the water. :IS2:

 

[PhoenixDragon]

can't do that. it blows his whole argument out of the water. :IS2:

Yeah, we should never let facts get in the way of a good rant.