[PSA][0.8.0] Visibility (gun bloom) fix commentary

[Sub_Octavian]

Dear players,

 

In update 0.8.0 we fixed a visibility system bug which has been around for several months, since 0.7.9. I would like to clarify all the details of this fix, why it needs to be done, and what changes we are going to implement to meet your feedback.

 

How did it work before 0.7.9 / how will it work now in 0.8.0?

 

After firing Main Guns, a ship gets 20 seconds of concealment penalty (sometimes referred as “gun bloom”).

There could be two penalties – regular “after firing main guns”, which is equal to the ship’s main gun range and “after firing main guns from smoke”, which is always less.

For the sake of explanation, let’s not consider any “x-ray” detection methods: Radar, HAS and Proximity. They are irrelevant to this subject.

 

Let’s take an example with 2 ships – “Target” and “Observer”. Observer does not see Target, but it is in Target’s “after firing main guns” concealment range and beyond “after firing main guns from smoke”. Both ships are currently out in open water, without any line of sight (LoS) interruption.

 

1. If Target fires it’s main guns, it will get 20 seconds of “after firing main guns” concealment debuff. Observer will detect it.
2. Option A: If target moves behind an island afterwards, Observer stops detecting it (as LoS is interrupted), but the concealment debuff stays.
3. Option B: if target moves behind or within smoke screen, Observer stops detecting it (as LoS is interrupted by smoke, and Observer is beyond Target’s “after firing main guns from smoke” concealment range). The concealment value now is “after firing main guns from smoke”.
4. If a target, WITHIN these 20 seconds moves out of smoke/cover, Observer detects it again. Target concealment value is “after firing main guns” again (until 20 seconds expire).
5. Clarification: concealment changes are well illustrated by minimap, if you turn the advanced option on.
6. Clarification: 20 seconds timer starts ONLY if Target was detected when/as a result of firing main guns.

 

What was different with this bug and what changed?

 

Points 2-4 worked differently. To be precise, as soon as Target broke LoS with Observer, the timer was just canceled regardless of any further Target movement.

 

From gameplay point of view this allowed players to disengage more aggressively sometimes. Although, if we sum up everything “before” and “after” 0.8.0, it can be worded in only two changes:

 

1. If Target moves to/behind smoke screen after firing main guns, its concealment in 0.8.0 will be “after firing main guns from smoke” instead of “2 km aka X-Ray only” – for 20 seconds after firing.
2. If Target moves breaks LoS (cover, smoke) but then LoS is restored, its concealment in 0.8.0 will be “after firing main guns” instead of base – for 20 seconds after firing.

 

It should be noted that these cases may indeed be important sometimes, but overall, they are very minor and do not affect game balance in any way.

 

Then, why do you “fix” something that works fine and does not break anything?

 

To answer this, we should very clearly distinguish gameplay aspect and tech aspect.

 

Technically, this is a bug in the visibility system code – and it must be fixed. Even if the result of this bug is fine (or even enjoyable), the way it is “implemented” is very dangerous for game stability overall. Such bugs cannot be controlled and we cannot be sure that they won’t create additional side effects with other game components in the future.

 

Gameplay-wise, we have two points for fixing it. First, we believe that consistency in 20 seconds bloom time will make the visibility system more comprehensible – on an intuitive level. Secondly, and this is even more important, this bug may lead to a scenario when a huge ship can fire its main guns, and then immediately go undetected by breaking its LoS with a tiny island – and that plays, looks and feels weird.

 

However, there are strong arguments FOR the “bugged” mechanics. Many of you expressed the opinion that this mechanic promotes active play and brings better risk/reward by allowing players to disengage faster in some cases. We take these arguments very seriously.

 

What will happen now?

 

Fixing this bug in 0.8.0 is still a thing. As explained before, the risks of leaving it are too high, and we believe it’s not worth it.

 

However, we are not going to ignore the positive effects of this bug and your feedback on it. We are going to implement these effects as a proper feature of the game’s visibility system. It will take some time, as right now 0.8.1 is almost done and is being prepared for testing, with 0.8.2-0.8.3 in active development. But regardless of the tight schedule we are committed on delivering this change as soon as possible. We will keep you updated.

 

In the meantime, thank you all for your input and desire to make the game better.
Action stations!

[Aotearas]

Hmm weird, the previous topic from @MrConway about the RU BBs didn't show up in my notification list, but this one did. Forum notifications being funky again.

 

2 minutes ago, Sub_Octavian said:

What will happen now?

 

Fixing this bug in 0.8.0 is still a thing. As explained before, the risks of leaving it are too high, and we believe it’s not worth it.

 

However, we are not going to ignore the positive effects of this bug and your feedback on it. We are going to implement these effects as a proper feature of the game’s visibility system. It will take some time, as right now 0.8.1 is almost done and is being prepared for testing, with 0.8.2-0.8.3 in active development. But regardless of the tight schedule we are committed to delivering this change as soon as possible. We will keep you updated.

Was to be expected that the patch wouldn't be changed on such short notice (though then again I personally wouldn't mind if 0.8.0 were to be postponed another two weeks including more time for snowflakes and CBs  ), but it's nice to see WG wants to reimplement the bug as a proper feature in due time.

 

Besides I expect the patch cycle to accelerate during the CV testing come 0.8.0 so it shouldn't take too long for it to come back as was prefered. Plus it's not like I have much incitement to play surface ships in the meantime anyway considering the Alaska was postponed so it won't hurt me much waiting a bit.

 

Thanks

[Sub_Octavian]

8 minutes ago, Aotearas said:

Hmm weird, the previous topic from @MrConway about the RU BBs didn't show up in my notification list, but this one did. Forum notifications being funky again.

 

Was to be expected that the patch wouldn't be changed on such short notice (though then again I personally wouldn't mind if 0.8.0 were to be postponed another two weeks including more time for snowflakes and CBs  ), but it's nice to see WG wants to reimplement the bug as a proper feature in due time.

 

Besides I expect the patch cycle to accelerate during the CV testing come 0.8.0 so it shouldn't take too long for it to come back as was prefered. Plus it's not like I have much incitement to play surface ships in the meantime anyway considering the Alaska was postponed so it won't hurt me much waiting a bit.

 

Thanks

I personally hope for 0.8.3. 0.8.1 is already nearly finished, 0.8.2 will most likely contain a lot of CV updates and tweaks (0.8.1 may have them as well), so...

[MrConway]

8 minutes ago, Aotearas said:

Hmm weird, the previous topic from @MrConway about the RU BBs didn't show up in my notification list, but this one did. Forum notifications being funky again.

 

It seems it is connected to the fact that I pre-scheduled the BB thread for the correct time and this post was made directly. We'll see if we can teach the notification feature to also mention scheduled posts!

[Billy_Balloon_Head]

22 minutes ago, MrConway said:

It seems it is connected to the fact that I pre-scheduled the BB thread for the correct time and this post was made directly. We'll see if we can teach the notification feature to also mention scheduled posts!

FYI: With RSS, the notification works properly.

[Ragemane]

47 minutes ago, Sub_Octavian said:

Technically, this is a bug in the visibility system code – and it must be fixed. Even if the result of this bug is fine (or even enjoyable), the way it is “implemented” is very dangerous for game stability overall. Such bugs cannot be controlled and we cannot be sure that they won’t create additional side effects with other game components in the future.

Breaking News:

Instead of fixing the bug - just change the code so that the bug is not a bug anymore and implement it with all the regression testing and you are good to go.

Technically it would have taken the same amount of time.....

[Panocek]

Just now, Bruecki2938 said:

Breaking News:

Instead of fixing the bug - just change the code so that the bug is not a bug anymore and implement it with all the regression testing and you are good to go.

What a BS "argument" this is.....

Isn't exactly what S_O said? Reintroduce "bug" as feature in more controlled manner

[Ragemane]

Yes but as I edited, I meant in the first place instead of "fixing" the bug just make a proper implementation of it....

As most players liked that "bug"!

[Allied_Winter]

First off: Thank you. For the explanation and that you listen to the community.

 

I can understand that it isn't as easy as we sometimes make it out to be.

 

Second: I don't know if you've seen the part of the discussion regarding awareness of what has been changed on the PTS. Frankly, if I had knewn what was about to be changed/fixed/introduced I would've tested more. Thus 

 

Would it be possible for future PTS iterations to put out patch notes (let's called them "PTS patch notes" or "planned patch notes") including ALL the planned features/fixes for the PTS. I'd like to see this patch notes to have the same style as the actual patch notes for the patch a few weeks later.

Basically like this:

 

PTS PATCH NOTES:

 

CONTENT:

A

B

C

D

E

 

 

Later then:

PATCH NOTES Patch X.X.X:

 

CONTENT:

A

D

E

 

 

I know that may be a bit more upfront workload for you guys, but it makes it easier to a) see what all can/should be tested on the PTS and b) makes tracking of changes easier for everybody involved imho.

 

[Sub_Octavian]

18 minutes ago, Bruecki2938 said:

Yes but as I edited, I meant in the first place instead of "fixing" the bug just make a proper implementation of it....

As most players liked that "bug"!

To be clear.

I am NOT stating that proper implementation will take 2-3 months of full time work (Jesus I hope not...).

However, we are pushing one MAJOR update each month. 0.8.1 is almost in testing now, 0.8.2 is being finalized, 0.8.3 is in development...that means that we either queue it for ~0.8.3 (if our preliminaty estimation is correct) OR we rush it closer (technically you indeed may rush it into 0.8.2 or even 0.8.1).

BUT! This brings two major risks: technical (adding new mechanics into regression....ouch) and org (if we squeeze it into already very tight dev schedule, we may lose something else).

 

Is is justified to risk that much? Sorry, but our answer is no. You like the bug, I personally like the bug, a lot of staff like the bug, we all agree let's implement is as a feature. But we lived without this bug all time prior to 0.7.9. Yes, it's cool, but it's not critical enough to justify the risk of Rushing-B it into the nearest update.

I hope I was able to explain this :-)

P.S. Wrong quote, I was referring to your previous comment.

[Panocek]

5 minutes ago, Sub_Octavian said:

To be clear.

I am NOT stating that proper implementation will take 2-3 months of full time work (Jesus I hope not...).

However, we are pushing one MAJOR update each month. 0.8.1 is almost in testing now, 0.8.2 is being finalized, 0.8.3 is in development...that means that we either queue it for ~0.8.3 (if our preliminaty estimation is correct) OR we rush it closer (technically you indeed may rush it into 0.8.2 or even 0.8.1).

BUT! This brings two major risks: technical (adding new mechanics into regression....ouch) and org (if we squeeze it into already very tight dev schedule, we may lose something else).

 

Is is justified to risk that much? Sorry, but our answer is no. You like the bug, I personally like the bug, a lot of staff like the bug, we all agree let's implement is as a feature. But we lived without this bug all time prior to 0.7.9. Yes, it's cool, but it's not critical enough to justify the risk of Rushing-B it into the nearest update.

I hope I was able to explain this :-)

P.S. Wrong quote, I was referring to your previous comment.

I assume temporarily, or even permanently relaxing dev schedule to 5 weeks/patch is out of question?

[Ragemane]

Thanks for the explaination - Then hope you are right and it wont take months to have it as a proper "feature" in the game then! :)

 

PS: I think a lot of players would gladly pass on the CV rework so we wouldn't mind if we would "lose" that! :)

[Sub_Octavian]

5 minutes ago, Panocek said:

I assume temporarily, or even permanently relaxing dev schedule to 5 weeks/patch is out of question?

RELAXING???

 

[Panocek]

2 minutes ago, Sub_Octavian said:

RELAXING???

 

You know, there is more to life than 168 work hours in a week

[ElrogGA]

ok ill come back to the game after 4 months

[MrConway]

1 hour ago, Allied_Winter said:

First off: Thank you. For the explanation and that you listen to the community.

 

I can understand that it isn't as easy as we sometimes make it out to be.

 

Second: I don't know if you've seen the part of the discussion regarding awareness of what has been changed on the PTS. Frankly, if I had knewn what was about to be changed/fixed/introduced I would've tested more. Thus 

 

Would it be possible for future PTS iterations to put out patch notes (let's called them "PTS patch notes" or "planned patch notes") including ALL the planned features/fixes for the PTS. I'd like to see this patch notes to have the same style as the actual patch notes for the patch a few weeks later.

Basically like this:

 

PTS PATCH NOTES:

 

CONTENT:

A

B

C

D

E

 

 

Later then:

PATCH NOTES Patch X.X.X:

 

CONTENT:

A

D

E

 

 

I know that may be a bit more upfront workload for you guys, but it makes it easier to a) see what all can/should be tested on the PTS and b) makes tracking of changes easier for everybody involved imho.

 

 

I like your suggestion and I'll see if this is something we can move to - no promises though :)

[quickr]

2 hours ago, Sub_Octavian said:

However, we are not going to ignore the positive effects of this bug and your feedback on it. We are going to implement these effects as a proper feature of the game’s visibility system. It will take some time, as right now 0.8.1 is almost done and is being prepared for testing, with 0.8.2-0.8.3 in active development. But regardless of the tight schedule we are committed on delivering this change as soon as possible. We will keep you updated.

Reading this I fear it will get swept under the carpet after a month or so. WG hoping community will forget it even existed.

Lot of noise (not nearly as much as this but still) was made about YY nerf couple of months back, now, barely anyone remembers it.

Hopefully I'm wrong.

[Cyclops_]

I think I will be mothballing my RN DD, for the next few months as they will be religated to spotting only 😔

[Sub_Octavian]

4 hours ago, quickr said:

Reading this I fear it will get swept under the carpet after a month or so. WG hoping community will forget it even existed.

Lot of noise (not nearly as much as this but still) was made about YY nerf couple of months back, now, barely anyone remembers it.

Hopefully I'm wrong.

YY nerf was fully justified. We should just deal with it - sometimes ships will be nerfed (because sometimes they are buffed, and overall, this is balancng).

 

Aso for "sweeping it under the carpet". I don't know how else I can put it, man. Let me try it this way: I officially confirm that we will implement it as a proper part of visibility mechanics, because you, our dear players, really enjoyed the effect of the bug, you made your point very clear, and because we agree with your argument FOR it, finding it stronger than our initial argument AGAINST it. 

 

Good night 

[TeaAndTorps]

I'm really pleased with this resolution, as stated in the big thread under 'Gameplay'.

 

I'd also like to say how pleased I am that the devblog now has an official presence on the forum. More opportunities for direct contact and feedback can only be a good thing 

[Zemeritt]

8 hours ago, Sub_Octavian said:

 

Fixing this bug in 0.8.0 is still a thing. As explained before, the risks of leaving it are too high, and we believe it’s not worth it.

 

However, we are not going to ignore the positive effects of this bug and your feedback on it. We are going to implement these effects as a proper feature of the game’s visibility system. It will take some time, as right now 0.8.1 is almost done and is being prepared for testing, with 0.8.2-0.8.3 in active development. But regardless of the tight schedule we are committed on delivering this change as soon as possible. We will keep you updated.

 

Sure and then in 3 month you ask: "What changes to the visibility system?"

Considering how long it took you to fix the AP-Bug (which you still havent, just found a cheap workaround) , I somehow believe this will also be a mess.

[Verblonde]

1 hour ago, Sub_Octavian said:

YY nerf was fully justified.

I don't have YY, so I'm relatively relaxed about all this, however: the impression I got was that people appreciated that the ship needed a nerf, what upset them rather wasn't that it was hit with the nerf bat so much as repeatedly run over with the nerf steamroller...!

[AngryDragon70]

So, for the next 2 patches/updates we will stay more behind islands in t9 and t10 then on 0.7.9. That will be fun..

Especially with the new ranked starting.

[Chaos_Umbra]

1 hour ago, AngryDragon70 said:

So, for the next 2 patches/updates we will stay more behind islands in t9 and t10 then on 0.7.9. That will be fun..

Especially with the new ranked starting.

 

Well at least CVs can't be used in ranked as it is tier 9 and there are no CVs... so no need to hide behind islands due to plane spotting 

[CAP98100]

"they are very minor and do not affect game balance in any way" Straight out LOL

@Sub_OctavianWhat if target shoots one barrel from smoke, blooms in smoke, and within that period 20 second:
-Observer enters the in smoke bloom area;
-Observer static and in the mentioned distance, but the smoke disappears?

(I feel a massive nerf from it...)

Could't you fix it with an e.g 5 sec penatly, in the mainly mentioned situations? Are you really had to put it in now? Why not earlier? Why not later?