Please, in the name of all that is holy, enable dot labels

I just spent half an hour circling an opposing aircraft on a server that had the map icons enabled, but no labels. We were co alt, had a good idea of where the the other aircraft was and we still couldn't see each other.

If that's your idea of realism, you can keep it.

The no label advocates might want to consider why Korea and WW2 servers are usually empty, with a total playerbase that must measure less than 100 people, with maybe a third of those being the hardcore regulars.

Maybe that's the way you like it though.... ?

The no label advocates might want to consider why Korea and WW2 servers are usually empty, with a total playerbase that must measure less than 100 people, with maybe a third of those being the hardcore regulars.

Maybe that's the way you like it though.... ?

Not all "non-label" WW2 servers are like that. For example, the Storm of War server in the first two and half weeks of July 2020 alone, has already had 700 unique clients, many of whom have accrued a lot of flight hours. Ref: https://stormofwar.info/pilots.php . In fact, rather than being "usually empty", the server admin has trouble finding a quiet moment to take the server down to do maintenance and updates.

Not all "non-label" WW2 servers are like that.

Good ! I don't have any axe to grind against SoW, far from it. I hope you get plenty of users, who enjoy themselves and stick around.

The problem with WW2 and Korea servers isn't labels or not labels, but simply the number of people willing to fly on them. If a small community gets split into two by one server setting, it helps no one. I happen to prefer Korea and Cold War servers, both of which have fairly small populations. Both of which only have a few servers to choose from. So the decision is easy: fly on the server that has the most people, which is usually the only server that has more than one person, regardless of the server settings just to maximize the numbers.

The Korea 1952! server has a small cast of regulars that is very sensitive to the time frame you log on. The absence of labels dots isn't normally a problem because most of the people I have encountered will use text and voice chat to agree to meet at Sochi at high altitude with contrails. If I have time to "rearm" and I am flying the MiG-15bis, I take the bright red paint scheme and turn on my nav lights. That it totally unrealistic, but I want to get into a dogfight not circle around by myself for 30 minutes or more.

Some people choose tactics over going head on into a fight. They stay below contrail altitude and don't communicate or co-ordinate in any way. They won't engage if you are at contrail altitude and will wait for a chance to slip in behind you and get a clean kill undetected. This is exceptionally realistic. This is the way real pilots who want to live and aren't restricted by command doctrine should fly.

After circling over Sochi for over 15 minutes and never seeing any enemies even though I know they are airborne and nearby, I decide to leave the server. But I don't just leave or eject, I fly home and land. Of course, the same guy that I could never find chased me all the way home and strafed me on final approach with gear and flaps down. He made only one pass and didn't damage me enough to prevent a safe landing, but it is a waste of my time to play on a server where I fly for 30 to 60 minutes, never get to fight, but get shot at as I am landing to leave the server. If multiplayer was always like this, I would go back to single player. But many if not most nights, I can find some people who want to play the same way I do: get to a WVR position and have a nice dogfight. I generally don't care if I am outnumbered. I don't care if the enemy starts with an advantage above or behind me. I just want a chance to maneuver for a bit before I die or get a kill.

On a cold war server with F-5s vs MiG-21s, I don't mind being shot from behind by a missile I never saw, especially since I have radar and usually have AWACS/ground control calls. But without "dots", I can pass very close and completely miss spotting an aircraft I probably would have seen in reality. I don't get upset when this happens. I am a pretty relaxed person, not worried about kill ratios, etc. But I have a lot more fun when I can spot someone that I should be able to see and actually enter a fight instead of being bounced by an aircraft I knew was there and was less than 2 nm away, well within visual range even for small fighters like the F-5 and MiG-21.

Regardless of settings, if a server has at least one person I can fly against and a matchup I enjoy, such as F-5 vs MiG-21 or F-86 vs MiG-15, I will fly whichever side will balance the numbers and if I have fun, I will keep coming back. The "dot" setting can make it easier to get into a WVR dogfight with a fairly neutral start, which increases the chance I will have fun and keep coming back. But what is more important than any one setting if flying with others whose preferences are similar to yours. With the right numbers of the right type of people, you can have fun with little regard for the server settings.

with a total playerbase that must measure less than 100 people, with maybe a third of those being the hardcore regulars.

Maybe that's the way you like it though.... ?

Well, this is just total nonsense.

A total of 719 unique pilots have joined the Storm of War server so far this month - that's just one WW2 server.

Well, this is just total nonsense.

A total of 719 unique pilots have joined the Storm of War server so far this month - that's just one WW2 server.

How many of them flew for more than an hour and then came back for an another hour ?

This post isn't about SoW, except in as far as SoW is a server without labels. I've made it abundantly clear I don't have any problems with you or the way you run your own server.

How many of them flew for more than an hour and then came back for an another hour ?

Many hundreds of them, for 3 or 4 months since we've been tracking player stats.

This post isn't about SoW, except in as far as SoW is a server without labels. I've made it abundantly clear I don't have any problems with you or the way you run your own server.

I'm not defending SoW specifically. I'm just countering false claims with the only data I have access to, which just happens to be SoW data. I am sure LDFM has similar numbers, their server is also very popular, and many players fly on both.

Many hundreds ( two ? three ? four ? ) spent more than two hours on the SoW server alone, in more than two visits ? as in they were regular visitors ? come off it...when I was using the server it was mostly maybe twenty people at a time drawn from the same larger pool of regulars.

I don't doubt you've got data that you can claim shows that DCS WW2 MP isn't almost dead on it's feet right now, but what you don't say is that joining the server for more than 3 minutes gets you counted as a visitor.

There is only one other WW2 server that gets any real numbers on it, the rest are all empty.

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But anyway...

It's obviously me that's out of step, I'm just banging my head against a brick wall here.

People use DCS any way that they like and that's as it should be.

If they want to either see nothing because the game looks pretty, or alternatively go with screen resolutions that belong in Minecraft and have some action, I don't care.

I'm in the first camp. I'm sitting right next to an enormous, but low res LCD TV that's waiting to be thrown out, once the dump re-opens. I could hook that up and get stuck in to some no-labels WW-2 and Korea action, but that doesn't do it for me, because the graphics will look horrible.

I do have this nagging feeling that a small group of highly competitive people - the kind of people who care a lot about kill statistics - are very happy with the state of the spotting in DCS, because they've found the right combination of hardware to give them an edge. Labels would take that edge away, so they really don't like the idea.

I've seen the same thing happen in other sims and it is definitely currently going on in that other WW-2 sim.

Hopefully ED will sort out their AI, then I won't have to put up with other people at all :D :D :D

I'm in the first camp. I'm sitting right next to an enormous, but low res LCD TV that's waiting to be thrown out, once the dump re-opens. I could hook that up and get stuck in to some no-labels WW-2 and Korea action, but that doesn't do it for me, because the graphics will look horrible.

 

I do have this nagging feeling that a small group of highly competitive people - the kind of people who care a lot about kill statistics - are very happy with the state of the spotting in DCS, because they've found the right combination of hardware to give them an edge. Labels would take that edge away, so they really don't like the idea.

I've seen the same thing happen in other sims and it is definitely currently going on in that other WW-2 sim.

 

Hopefully ED will sort out their AI, then I won't have to put with other people at all :D :D :D

You’re not the only one who's frustrated, mate. My squad has pilots who don't use VR and do have nice rigs with monitors at 3440x1440 and above. Just the other night two of us flew on SOW for almost an hour. There were at least ten enemy players somewhere on the map. We flew around all the hotspots on the coast at 8000 get and saw nothing. Then we tried 3,000 feet -- still nothing. At least 16 other players and we didn't see a single one. Until we got down on the deck. At 200 feet, there were all kinds of airplanes around us, able to spot us while we had no chance of spotting them against the ground. It was very frustrating to say the least.

You’re not the only one who's frustrated, mate.

The 475th Satans Angels WW2 server has custom labels on it which are superbly done. I'd recommend that one for anyone like me, who has spotting problems with their hardware. Its the wrong timezone for me - maybe the right one for you - but I have a fly round there sometimes.

I know exactly what you mean about servers without labels, I can fly on any of them at above 6000ft and never get attacked, or see any action at all, unless it's a bomber raid. But that's realism for you, the air war in WW2 was fought at 200 feet, didn't you know ? :D

 

That said, I am a pilot in real life and I have always felt that DCS does plane spotting very poorly. I actually have a more difficult time in DCS spotting and maintaining a lock on a bogey than I do in real life (I am fortunate to still have 20/18 vision in both eyes.)

I agree 100% . I flew in the real world and spotting just isn't as hard as it is in DCS, especially on a 4K monitor.

My exasperation with no labels advocates is that they claim it's all about realism, but the lack of labels leads to incredibly unrealistic tactics where everyone is hugging the deck. I don't mind them seeing BFM as a competitive E-sport, that's great - if you like that sort of thing - just don't pretend it's got any relation to real world air fighting.

I have a lot of time in another sim based around the Battle Of Britain. The deal there - because the spotting was so much better - was that the first thing you would do after taking off was climb as hard as you could, hoping that you wouldn't get jumped on your way up to fighting height. Just like how the battle was fought in the real world. You never flew on the deck unless you had a very good reason to be there.

Here are some planes, on a server that has sensible dot labels enabled. The distance is 4000 metres. The image resolution ( cropped ) is the same as I see on my monitor.

You can see how the labels are huge, brightly coloured, would be easily visible through your own cockpit and break 'immersion' ( that's sarcasm, sorry :D )

The 475th Satans Angels WW2 server has custom labels on it which are superbly done. I'd recommend that one for anyone like me, who has spotting problems with their hardware. Its the wrong timezone for me - maybe the right one for you - but I have a fly round there sometimes.

 

I know exactly what you mean about servers without labels, I can fly on any of them at above 6000ft and never get attacked, or see any action at all, unless it's a bomber raid. But that's realism for you, the air war in WW2 was fought at 200 feet, didn't you know ? :D

Thanks for the server plug.

I have been flying online for over 20 years and have had the privilege of flying online with folks who have flown in combat in the real world.

I also have my own 30+ years of real world flying to give me the sense of how things look.

A long time ago in a MMOG far, far away I was an extremist when it came to flying with labels OFF.

Back then, 1080p was not even a distant dream. Spotting was easy without labels although plenty argued that no labels favored those with high end systems.

Back then "icons" were super ugly and not configurable. A giant neon sign. The game was prettier without them and still retained the important quality of being able to find and engage in aerial combat.

Fast forward to DCS in 2020. The things that make DCS a beautiful experience on a 4K monitor make it hard to see the "dot" and, in VR, the ever present slight haze on a flat screen becomes an annoying fog. In VR, aircraft blend into the sky at medium ranges and disappear against the terrain.

My group is highly focused on PvP gunfights. We have been doing it for over 20 years in several different titles. PvP gunfights is why my server exists although I have found it necessary to put in AI. We enjoy the challenge of flying as a team against others doing the same thing.

I have found that DCS does not have a large population of flyers interested in PvP gunfights. It does have a large population of players interested in a high tech version of hide and seek. Of course, that is wrapped up in the flag of "realism". It is true that most guns kills in the history of air combat were essentially aerial assassinations, the victim never seeing his killer.

This realism, however, is not much challenge for either side of the equation.

I find it boring.

I love DCS and I work everyday trying to bring more of my group into DCS but it doesn't offer much when it comes to PvP WVR gunfights. The few servers with any population featuring the gunfighters very distinctly oppose any sort of spotting facilitation.

My server facilitates spotting but does not have enough population to regularly find an actual PvP fight.

I will keep trying though.

So many people have 4K monitors now and spotting in DCS when using one is awful.

Everything else looks great in 4K, but you can't see a plane until it's right in front of you.

If people don't like the labels then they have the option to turn them off, the grey unobtrusive dots seem best to me.

Try doing it in VR.

Extranajero,

Why not just team up with someone(s) and create a DCS server with labels as you or your team would prefer.

I think I might do that. There doesn't seem to be any sign of existing servers changing.

I might also think of ways to reward realistic flying for warbirds - i.e. not at 50 feet - but that might be too complicated.