Should infiltrator be the only class that can spot?

[Red Beard]

Originally Posted by Resolve

It does suck because it sucks in BF3. That's why people play HC more. Were you even around when the uproar happened about 3d spotting in bf3? I guess not...I have faith in the planetside community to get this right.

I don't want 3D spotting either...but seriously; "It sucked because it was in BF"...?

Are you joking? Tanks were in Battlefield 3 too...Do you want to get rid of those too?

[Resolve]

Originally Posted by Red Beard

I don't want 3D spotting either...but seriously; "It sucked because it was in BF"...?

Are you joking? Tanks were in Battlefield 3 too...Do you want to get rid of those too?

You're misunderstanding why I'm saying that it sucks. It sucks because the community unanimously agreed that it sucked. Everyone knew that vehicles were a part of BF3. There are tons of counters for vehicles. There are non for a person spamming Q. 3D spotting was introduced by DICE because they thought it would add to squad play, when in reality all it ended up doing was giving noobs a dumbed down wall hack and pushed the core community to create servers without 3D spotting.

It's seriously an anti-strategic tool that should have never been implemented in any tactical/strategical FPS.

[Red Beard]

Originally Posted by Resolve

You're misunderstanding why I'm saying that it sucks. It sucks because the community unanimously agreed that it sucked. Everyone knew that vehicles were a part of BF3. There are tons of counters for vehicles. There are non for a person spamming Q. 3D spotting was introduced by DICE because they thought it would add to squad play, when in reality all it ended up doing was giving noobs a dumbed down wall hack and pushed the core community to create servers without 3D spotting.

It's seriously an anti-strategic tool that should have never been implemented in any tactical/strategical FPS.

I agree with these arguments, because you're giving a supporting argument to agree with now. My original disagreement with you came from you ignoring Duddy's supporting arguments, opting rather for simply repeating yourself.

Anyway, my preference is to have 2D spotting enabled only by infiltrators with a timer before disappearing, but I think Duddy's idea is very good as well, because he's actually looking at WHAT made 3d spotting bad (it wasn't the name, much like "BFRs"!)

I just want to see infils useful in squads without having quasi-wall hacks...Not only that, but they clutter the screen making it ugly and confusing at times...I saw a few noobs in the video shot as solid walls because they were watching the icons rather than looking for outlines of players.

[Werefox]

Originally Posted by Resolve

... It sucks because the community unanimously agreed that it sucked. ...

I'm going to go out of a limb here and say that the BF3 community did not unanimously agree as that would suggest that every single person that plays BF3 was asked and said they didn't want it. For instance, I personally like spotting in BF3 for tracking vehicles (and snipers if I'm being honest) - and am not particularly fussed for other troop types.

At best, people that could overcome their velleity didn't like it and so posted their dissent, and the rest cared (one way or the other), but not enough to actually post anything about it.

[FrivolousSam]

The reason spotting exists is being able to let your opponents know where an enemy is without having to awkwardly sperg into the micropone UH THERE A... DUDE WITH A.. THING OVER BY THE.. STUFF no it's not great.

It's a necessary thing. I think the best way to do it is to have a 3D pointer ability, but not one that autotargets players or follows them around in a game breaking way. Something more in the vein of the Portal 2 co op "hey look over here" button, make it visible only to people you're in a VOIP channel with so you can say "I saw an enemy over here" and hit a button to indicate where you mean, and this opens it up to other functions like "put a mine/turret at this doorway".

Basically, replace spotting with digital pointing.

[Resolve]

Originally Posted by Red Beard

I agree with these arguments, because you're giving a supporting argument to agree with now. My original disagreement with you came from you ignoring Duddy's supporting arguments, opting rather for simply repeating yourself.

Anyway, my preference is to have 2D spotting enabled only by infiltrators with a timer before disappearing, but I think Duddy's idea is very good as well, because he's actually looking at WHAT made 3d spotting bad (it wasn't the name, much like "BFRs"!)

I just want to see infils useful in squads without having quasi-wall hacks...Not only that, but they clutter the screen making it ugly an confusing at times...I saw a few noobs in the video shoot as solid walls because they were watching the icons rather than looking for outlines of players.

Cool, glad I could get my point across. I'd rather opt for either minimap spotting only, or no spotting at all. Unless we give infil/LA some tool(binoculars/radar gun) to spot that allows enemy position to be revealed for like 15 seconds I'd be okay with that too. I just really don't want to see orange dots everywhere and having people just pot shotting orange dots because their buddy a mile away spammed q.

[Resolve]

Originally Posted by Werefox

I'm going to go out of a limb here and say that the BF3 community did not unanimously agree as that would suggest that every single person that plays BF3 was asked and said they didn't want it. For instance, I personally like spotting in BF3 for tracking vehicles (and snipers if I'm being honest) - and am not particularly fussed for other troop types.

At best, people that could overcome their velleity didn't like it and so posted their dissent, and the rest cared (one way or the other), but not enough to actually post anything about it.

Majority rules. Go look at servers on PC and tell me that spotting isn't off in most of them. Forums were in an uproar in beta when spotting was shown. Hell there were tons of youtube videos with benny hill playing about sitting in bushes shooting at orange dots.

It was added for the console kiddies. We all know this. PC gamers don't require crutches like this.

[Red Beard]

Originally Posted by Resolve

Cool, glad I could get my point across. I'd rather opt for either minimap spotting only, or no spotting at all. Unless we give infil/LA some tool(binoculars/radar gun) to spot that allows enemy position to be revealed for like 15 seconds I'd be okay with that too. I just really don't want to see orange dots everywhere and having people just pot shotting orange dots because their buddy a mile away spammed q.

Indeed...HATE the icon spam, wall hackish, stop-scouting-and-watch-the pretty-lights garbage.

[Saintlycow]

Originally Posted by FrivolousSam

The reason spotting exists is being able to let your opponents know where an enemy is without having to awkwardly sperg into the micropone UH THERE A... DUDE WITH A.. THING OVER BY THE.. STUFF no it's not great.

Funny enough, thats what the US trooper sounds like when he spots someone.

[Werefox]

Originally Posted by Resolve

Majority rules. Go look at servers on PC and tell me that spotting isn't off in most of them. Forums were in an uproar in beta when spotting was shown. Hell there were tons of youtube videos with benny hill playing about sitting in bushes shooting at orange dots.

It was added for the console kiddies. We all know this. PC gamers don't require crutches like this.

So now its majority rules, and not unanimously? This is the problem with sweeping statements. All you can say for certain, is that during the BF3 beta there was a couple of hundred, perhaps several thousand unique posts against the idea. Given that BF3 sold 8 million units in the first month (including 3 million preorders) (wikipedia), that's a pretty insignificant number of customers who cared enough to post about 3D spotting.

I just did a check in the battlelog server browser with 'Use 3D spotting' on for the Oceania region (the only one I particularly care about in BF3) and got 30 servers back. I then repeated the search with 'Use 3D spotting' off and also got 30 servers back (I suspect that there is a 30 server limit in the results). So I can say from my actual research @ 12:30pm NZST on 11th June 2012 that in the Oceania region its approximately 1:1 server administrators don't like 3D spotting, or feel that there is enough of a need to supply a server supporting that setting. There were approximately similar number of people playing on both result lists (most servers are empty at this time of day), and I should also point out that just because people are playing on a no 3D spotting server that that is the reason that they are there (and the same is true in reverse).

[Red Beard]

Originally Posted by Werefox

So now its majority rules, and not unanimously? This is the problem with sweeping statements. All you can say for certain, is that during the BF3 beta there was a couple of hundred, perhaps several thousand unique posts against the idea. Given that BF3 sold 8 million units in the first month (including 3 million preorders) (wikipedia), that's a pretty insignificant number of customers who cared enough to post about 3D spotting.

I just did a check in the battlelog server browser with 'Use 3D spotting' on for the Oceania region (the only one I particularly care about in BF3) and got 30 servers back. I then repeated the search with 'Use 3D spotting' off and also got 30 servers back (I suspect that there is a 30 server limit in the results). So I can say from my actual research @ 12:30pm NZST on 11th June 2012 that in the Oceania region its approximately 1:1 server administrators don't like 3D spotting, or feel that there is enough of a need to supply a server supporting that setting. There were approximately similar number of people playing on both result lists (most servers are empty at this time of day), and I should also point out that just because people are playing on a no 3D spotting server that that is the reason that they are there (and the same is true in reverse).

See above reasons why quasi-wall hack is a terrible idea unless fundamentally altered from the BF3 model.

[SniperSteve]

Why is there a concern about spotting. Normally I just kill the dude and don't want to tell people where it is so I can get the kills anyway...

I must be missing something....

[Werefox]

Originally Posted by Red Beard

See above reasons why quasi-wall hack is a terrible idea unless fundamentally altered from the BF3 model.

I fully agree that there should be changes to the way spotting works, and personally believe that the implementation in BF3 works and meets a need but needs refinement. You will read from my initial post that I would like to see it end when line of sight to a spotted enemy is lost.

My disagreement is with sweeping statements being used to support a view point as it stifles discussion. Especially when it is 'it sucks and everyone(tm) says so' and then resorts to personal attacks against straw-man groups ('console verus PC' for example).

[Resolve]

Originally Posted by SniperSteve

Why is there a concern about spotting. Normally I just kill the dude and don't want to tell people where it is so I can get the kills anyway...

I must be missing something....

Because there are people who spam Q to find a dot, pot shot the dot, herp derping all day. It takes no skill when people use spotting, and it's easily abused. It adds fuck-all to gameplay, and frankly it feels like an insult to PC players. Figuratively speaking you have an extension of your arm as a controller and you need something to assist you in finding targets? Give me a break people...

[Werefox]

Originally Posted by Resolve

Because there are people who spam Q to find a dot, pot shot the dot, herp derping all day. It takes no skill when people use spotting, and it's easily abused. It adds fuck-all to gameplay, and frankly it feels like an insult to PC players. Figuratively speaking you have an extension of your arm as a controller and you need something to assist you in finding targets? Give me a break people....

So the real issue is not spotting per se, but rather the abuse of it to highlight people that they can't actually see.

I disagree and assert that spotting does add to gameplay especially from a overall strategy point of view (overall commanders knowing relative positions of troops is important - or even troop column positions for reaver attack runs for instance). But that all being said, the spotting doesn't need to pinpoint accurate either. Perhaps something closer to the World of Tanks style of spotting would work better (where the spotting is passive).