Less transparent water at shorelines?

[oboe]

Just curious what was behind this change - it looks much, much less realistic from the air this way (haven't seen from land yet).  The water in front of a leading wave crest should be almost transparent as it rolls onto the beach, but now there is a very clear blue demarcation line between water and land.   

Visually its a pretty big step backward; was it related to a frame rate issue or bug with the waves/water?   Or GVs not being to see water before they drive into it?




Here's a screenshot from back during AH3's Beta of Beautiful Lass winging along the beach.  The surf looks much more realistic to me this way:

 

[bustr]

At least now when I tested driving down a steep slope at water, my tank ran at full speed then stopped on touching the water. And I could use reverse and pull away instead of being stuck and having to tower. You never know, on BowlMA I pulled some of those beaches so far out, you had inches of water for almost an 1\8 of a mile.

[oboe]

Doesn't seem very realistic for shallow water to suddenly stop a speeding tank.  I hope a solution to that problem can be found that allows the surf to remain much more transparent.

Maybe instead of stopping suddenly, the engine could quit, slowing the tank down more gradually, and then it could sink a foot or so into the wet sand as it comes to a stop?   I don't mind GVs getting stuck in water and having to tower out - as long as they realize why they are stuck, they'll learn. 

[Spikes]

I got stuck in an M3 in the water even though it didn't look like it turned into water for another 100 or so feet.

[oboe]

This is what the water's edge looks like from ground level now:



Is there a way to lay beach sand under the water, instead of just having the same vegetation tile underneath the water?   Or enhance the surf so the wave crests are more noticeable from ground level?  Add a crashing surf soundtrack?

[Devil 505]

I agree Oboe, big step backwards. I hope it is put back the way it was.

[Threeup]

I can only say that I was taking off from a field on the coast adjacent to a bay (not sure what map it was in).

From about 8K it looked like perfect left and right hand point waves were breaking towards the middle of the bay. Just peeling off.

This probably isn’t relevant but it looked good from that high up. All I could think of was saying “Knits and Bish don’t surf”.

[Randy1]

I too enjoyed the clear water's edge.

In an LVT it was difficult to tell where the water ended.  The change made the landing of an LVT better.  That is the plus side to the change.

[oboe]

Your opinion and feedback are surely relevant Threeup.   I wasn't sure what was the driver to this program change but it sounds like it was an effort to make the water's edge more visible to GVers so they can avoid getting stuck in the surf. 

The change seems to involve a trade off - better functioning for GVers but worse-looking beaches from the air - so if you think the beaches look better from the air now, I'd say that's important feedback.   Contradictory to my impression, but that doesn't mean its wrong.   I'd be interested to see a screenshot of the view you described, it sounds pretty cool.

I hope our feedback helps HTC evaluate their changes, and how people are taking them.   Plenty of times its positive, but sometimes its negative; that's just the nature of change and how people react.

Randy, since LTVs are the only GVs that can drive through water, how did the change make the landing better?  I don't think I've landed an LTV since Beta testing, and back then you sorta got stuck - forward motion dropped to a crawl, but if you kept at it, you'd eventually emerge from the surf and get back up to land speed.

<S>

[Krupinski]

Yeah I agree, not quite sure what you guys were thinking with this change. It looked much better before.

[ImADot]

It would be nice if every player had the exact same hardware so the game looked and performed the exact same way for everyone. But that's not reality, so certain compromises need to be made.

[oboe]

It's not sounding to me like this was a hardware/performance issue.  I'm only guessing using the info from this thread, but it sounds like an issue that may have resulted from some of BowlMA's exceptionally wide, shallow beaches (Bustr has said some of them have only inches deep water for up to 1/8 mile.  I can see how that could cause trouble for GVers trying to estimate where the water's edge is--we've never had such wide shallow areas before.)  That would seem to explain why it never came up in Beta testing - BowlMA came after Beta ended.

And probably the most expedient solution was to darken the color of the water so its edge is more visible to GVs.   But that change has a pretty large negative impact on the realism of the pilot's view of waves/surf on beaches (to me and several others at least).

I could be way off, but that's my ill-informed take on the situation.