ICONS

[waystin2]

Nope in the LW main.  Come try out the shortened icons in the AVA, it's a challenge!

[Wiley]

I second the 'hit ctrl-I a few times and enjoy' sentiment.

The single biggest determining factor for effectiveness in the game should not be your monitor and video card.

Wiley.

[ink]

I laugh when I hear people say icons are more realistic


sorry but if the pilots of WW2 had giant neon signs over their heads.....I wonder how many kills Erich Hartmann would have been able to get.......

[Krusty]

Real pilots didn't need them because they weren't seeing the world through a LCD array of square pixels. With icons on you still get shot down just as easily if you're not looking behind you. That's how Hartman got his kills.


Edit: fixed name

[CAP1]

since this game is on the more realistic side of flying and gun fighting, how about we lose the icons. theres not too many noobs here anymore and since the numbers are obviously down why not try it out for a week in the main arena.

or, since mid war and early war arenas are basically dead why not use one of those servers and try out a "no enemy  icon late war" arena. HTC, would it hurt to try?  you already lost a lot of people when you started the handi capping eny project. you already lost a lot of people arena capping. why not JUST TRY it out. would it really hurt that bad?

 i love flying no icons. the problem in any arena other than the ava, would be that you can fight allied against allied, and axis against axis.

[Nr_RaVeN]

. oopsy,, hang double post

[Nr_RaVeN]

since this game is on the more realistic side of flying and gun fighting, how about we lose the icons. theres not too many noobs here anymore and since the numbers are obviously down why not try it out for a week in the main arena.

or, since mid war and early war arenas are basically dead why not use one of those servers and try out a "no enemy  icon late war" arena. HTC, would it hurt to try?  you already lost a lot of people when you started the handi capping eny project. you already lost a lot of people arena capping. why not JUST TRY it out. would it really hurt that bad?

I like this Guy..

seano
Hey come fly the AVA we fly short icons 2-3k and no enemy icons below 500..  That's a start..

[ink]

Real pilots didn't need them because they weren't seeing the world through a LCD array of square pixels. With icons on you still get shot down just as easily if you're not looking behind you. That's how Hartman got his kills.


Edit: fixed name

you are totally ignoring the facts.......

if hartmann was sneaking up on someone,(which we know most his kills were done that way) how successful would he have been towing around a neon sign the size of his plane.......which looking back or around his targets would not have been able to miss.....



plain and simple.  

[guncrasher]

you are totally ignoring the facts.......

if hartmann was sneaking up on someone,(which we know most his kills were done that way) how successful would he have been towing around a neon sign the size of his plane.......which looking back or around his targets would not have been able to miss.....



plain and simple.  

he didnt need a neon sign as he knew well in advance were his friends/enemies were/would be.  so basically he dove on a con with full confidence that it was an enemy plane.

but you can try the same thing and remove icons in ma see how well you do.  getting rid of icons is the stupidest idea for the ma. right along with bring back the night, as there never was a night for most people.

semp

semp

[ink]

he didnt need a neon sign as he knew well in advance were his friends/enemies were/would be.  so basically he dove on a con with full confidence that it was an enemy plane.

but you can try the same thing and remove icons in ma see how well you do.  getting rid of icons is the stupidest idea for the ma. right along with bring back the night, as there never was a night for most people.

semp

semp

not sure your comprehending 


not once did I say to get rid of them.



and I have flown with no icons.     

[guncrasher]

not sure your comprehending 


not once did I say to get rid of them.



and I have flown with no icons.     

my bad, the play w/o icons was directed to somebody else, but forgot to quote.


semp

[Krusty]

you are totally ignoring the facts.......

if hartmann was sneaking up on someone,(which we know most his kills were done that way) how successful would he have been towing around a neon sign the size of his plane.......which looking back or around his targets would not have been able to miss.....



plain and simple.  

Not plain, and not simple. Hartman got close. So close you couldn't miss, then he fired. Sometimes he was so close he aimed a single 20mm cannon round directly into a P-51's radiator scoop, and knew he had doomed the US pilot. At that range it's NOT about icons.

You "no icons" folks (and yes I'm turning it into a polarization at this point) keep using that argument but it doesn't hold water. In reality you can look somewhere and easily see the plane without an icon. In the game you can look that way and easily miss it.

You don't understand the difference between what you notice instantly with your eyes and what you can't notice very easily with an LCD.

In reality your eye is drawn to motion. Even a tiny fly is easily spotted across the room. You can spot a jetliner at 15K out in the distance without looking and without hearing it -- you just see the motion and look at what it is.

Human vision and perception is so far beyond this game that icons don't even make up for it. They can replicate some of it, but it's still not as informative as your real eyes even WITH icons.

Aces High is also an artificial fish-eye world. This helps simulate the near 180-degree peripheral vision we enjoy on a daily basis. However we can easily move our head to look a degree that way, 40 degrees up, 30 degrees this way, etc. It's fluid and instant and intuitive. In a game that doesn't work as well, not even with TIR. This artificial wide-angle view does a number of things to help the gamer us (not the real us) by reducing the F8, kp_4, kp_5, motions to track something that is instantly doable in real life.

We have had real pilots, from cessnas, to airline pilots, to real combat pilots, we've even had WW2 P-38 pilots way back (he thought the P-38 modeling was pretty good, way back in the early years), and we've had people show the physics, the math, the science of it all.

There is nothing about "no icons" that is realistic. Even WITH icons you're still at a handicap. It is filling in for major inherent flaws in trying to replicate human capability. It's not unique to AH either.

[jimson]

No icons isn't realistic but neither are icons. It's just what form of non realisticness you prefer.

I know of at least two real life pilots that prefer to fly no icons.

Boils down to personal preference.

[Krusty]

It's not just a matter of preference... While having a text label over the plane is not "realistic" -- the info it conveys is. It tells you the following info that you would easily be able to use your eye movement, head/neck movements, and details to tell the following:

plane orientation
plane direction of travel, skid, climb, bank
Distance is closing? Opening up?
Range? You might not be able to pinpoint, but in 200 yard increments, neither do icons
given friendlies, you can tell who's flying it -- normally this is easy to spot by looking at the fuselage codes
given enemies, it tells you what plane they are flying

And most likely more. I'm just typing this on the fly.

IDing aircraft based on color, configuration (high wing, low, prop, tail, etc) is done every day up to 10 miles. That's 6K. Gee... Kind of like our default icon range?

You can spot and track it even further out, albeit with better reliability than AH.

If you're so hell-bent about neon letters, that's one thing. If they are an affront to your eyes, change them. The info they represent is there instantly in reality. You don't get this info otherwise. THAT is why "no icons" hobbles you and presents a dull dim world where nobody can fly the energy game (which historically won the war) and nobody can do anything but merge last second and only the tightest turning plane wins.

Remember the AvA setups where the japanee mid-war was spanking every faster US plane? It's because without icons (as this setup had none) you do not get range, ID, closure, and any number of real world details that allow you to perform basic BFM and basic gunnery runs on a target, until you're too close to do anything about it.

Because of this and other observed issues, "no icons" devolves any arena that uses it into more of a knife-fight instant gratification deathmatch arena and you lose a wider scope of gameplay sacrificed for a narrow definition of fun.

There's just no upside to "no icons" unless you just want a mindless gangbang on-the-deck furball with rinse and repeat action. It's much more gamey this way to force players to fly this way.

[ink]

Not plain, and not simple. Hartman got close. So close you couldn't miss, then he fired. Sometimes he was so close he aimed a single 20mm cannon round directly into a P-51's radiator scoop, and knew he had doomed the US pilot. At that range it's NOT about icons.

You "no icons" folks (and yes I'm turning it into a polarization at this point) keep using that argument but it doesn't hold water. In reality you can look somewhere and easily see the plane without an icon. In the game you can look that way and easily miss it.

You don't understand the difference between what you notice instantly with your eyes and what you can't notice very easily with an LCD.

In reality your eye is drawn to motion. Even a tiny fly is easily spotted across the room. You can spot a jetliner at 15K out in the distance without looking and without hearing it -- you just see the motion and look at what it is.

Human vision and perception is so far beyond this game that icons don't even make up for it. They can replicate some of it, but it's still not as informative as your real eyes even WITH icons.

Aces High is also an artificial fish-eye world. This helps simulate the near 180-degree peripheral vision we enjoy on a daily basis. However we can easily move our head to look a degree that way, 40 degrees up, 30 degrees this way, etc. It's fluid and instant and intuitive. In a game that doesn't work as well, not even with TIR. This artificial wide-angle view does a number of things to help the gamer us (not the real us) by reducing the F8, kp_4, kp_5, motions to track something that is instantly doable in real life.

We have had real pilots, from cessnas, to airline pilots, to real combat pilots, we've even had WW2 P-38 pilots way back (he thought the P-38 modeling was pretty good, way back in the early years), and we've had people show the physics, the math, the science of it all.

There is nothing about "no icons" that is realistic. Even WITH icons you're still at a handicap. It is filling in for major inherent flaws in trying to replicate human capability. It's not unique to AH either.

you still ignore the fact that a giant neon sign is hovering above you...... totally negating any chance of a true sneak kill.......which is how most kills were achieved......

You CAN NOT  miss an Icon...... but you most certainly could miss an approaching nme con in TRW.

I wont disagree with how the icon makes up for the lack of real vision, I totally understand that,except THIS is not the real world nor is it rendered like TRW


 ..... and this is my point.......an icon goes beyond the eyesight and allows to easily see a virtual plane that may be taken actions that would allow him to sneak up on a con.  and to easily track that con.  

I feel icons are needed for playability......otherwise no one would see each other until it was to late, and that wouldn't be much fun now would it.