Client side mods (E.G. JSRS, Blastcore) - Yay or Nay

[Teddy]

I'm posting this topic as a player, not as a Admin or Moderator, this is not official, keep that in mind.

 

I'm curious to see what peoples are opinions are on this, personally i think it would be nice to have them on server as a optional thing. I've been asked about client side modes like JSRS/Blastcore from newer players and older players alike so if you want to voice your opinion on it now this the time.  If any Staff want to discuss here, i ask you to post your personal opinion and not the official standpoint on the matter.

 

Lets keep this civil.

Cheers.

[Johnson]

Just to add, the DynaSound mod is created by LAxmann, the same maker of the RHS sounds.

 

This means that there will be little to no difference between players hearing enemy RHS vehicles with or without DynaSound enabled, and in my opinion, should therefore not be categorised as differing player experience.

 

As for Blastcore, not much changes, players will experience the same things. There is no tactical benefit to using Blastcore, it is simply preference.

[GhostDragon]

I would agree with you Teddy, I like having the option available to me and I feel that I can get more out of the game with the enhanced sounds. 

[Minipily]

I believe there has been arguments for this and people believe the experience will "not be the same." 

 

I would go on and talk about these mods but I believe Johnson will be a better ambassador for such things so I'll leave it to him if he so chooses to explain. However I can say, non biased towards these modifications, that these will improve your game play with richer sounds and visuals making the whole experience more enjoyable. I believe people have talked about lag behind them and I don't see how that works out, I've used them before and had no issues with FPS. 

 

I look forward to see how this turns out, I would love to see them make a return however it isn't the end of the world if the community so chooses nay.

[hellspawnednl]

No FPS issues here in the past and hope we can use it again on EU3

[Johnson]

1 minute ago, Minipily said:

these will improve your game play with richer sounds and visuals

Not necessarily meaning louder sounds (therefore providing a tactical benefit) just crisper and cleaner.

 

Vanilla weapons sound much more metallic and, with EnhancedSoundscape (addition to DynaSound), sounds rebound and reflect of surfaces.

[GhostDragon]

I personally have found that the most they do is make the experience more unified to the sounds of RHS AND BAF as both get the sounds from LAx as Johnson has already stated

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using a phone app that is really irritating because it constantly advertises itself.

[BloodInTheSand]

My personal experience of these mods is the reason I've voted no. 
It's impossible to test something like this under every circumstance - and if the mods are made optional, there is the potential for a tactical advantage under some potentially unknown circumstances.

Sure, vanilla sounds aren't perfect - but at least we all know we're hearing the same things (speakers or headphones permitting)

If they are made mandatory to address that issue, there is the potential for impact on performance for people over a personal taste in sound which I just don't think is worth the risk.

 

Edited August 21, 2017 by BloodInTheSand
Expanding on a point

[Johnson]

13 minutes ago, BloodInTheSand said:

potential for a tactical advantage

This may be true, but as I've said, the mods do not make anything "louder". For example, you wont hear a MBT before anyone else does, simply changes the sound at the same ranges.

 

Additionally, I know ALOT of people don't play on full effects volume as I do. Due to this, I hear tanks much before anyone else normally will. There is already a tactical advantage in the field, through sound specifically.

[Ryko]

Before this goes too far, note that @S0zi0p4th is the maintainer of our repo, and there are a multitude of reasons why a mod is or is not included in our pack.  If it's purely client-side and has no impact on server performance, and causes no imbalance to the intention of gameplay (ie. you hear sounds from a greater distance than other players) then I personally have no problem with it.  However other mods have been considered and discarded for technical reasons completely unrelated to their excellence.

[Minipily]

Just now, J0hnson said:

Additionally, I know ALOT of people don't play on full effects volume as I do. Due to this, I hear tanks much before anyone else normally will. There is already a tactical advantage in the field, through sound specifically.

He is right, you can adjust your volume higher than others to hear things others don't which can technically be an advantage over others.

 

There is not much of a change in sound between vehicles also, a tank still sounds as loud as a tank does and a car sounds a lot like a car. Even if someone isn't used to these slightly altered sounds, I am sure common sense will allow them to distinguish vehicles, perhaps not the exact one, but at least variants which is without a doubt still enough to remain combat effective.

 

I can CERTAINLY understand how some people may be worried that slight sound altercations will make it hard to distinguish a vehicle, but I can assure you that the core vehicle types (Motorized, IFV, APC, MBT, etc) will have very similar sounds to how you would expect to hear one and it would not take long for these sounds to be made understood if not already. I can see how people may see an advantage in folk using a client side mod to make it more easy to identify vehicles but most people will already know that with vanilla mods, so it swings both ways!

 

I can understand completely how this can be a touchy subject and I'm sure a good debate with the AWE community will do us some good.

[GhostDragon]

Before this goes too far, note that [mention=3447]S0zi0p4th[/mention] is the maintainer of our repo, and there are a multitude of reasons why a mod is or is not included in our pack.  If it's purely client-side and has no impact on server performance, and causes no imbalance to the intention of gameplay (ie. you hear sounds from a greater distance than other players) then I personally have no problem with it.  However other mods have been considered and discarded for technical reasons completely unrelated to their excellence.

I don't doubt this and there are a lot of good reasons as to why mods should not be accepted but as these are optional client side mods and act as we say any point about server performance impact is null and void.

 

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using a phone app that is really irritating because it constantly advertises itself.

 

 

 

[Minipily]

4 minutes ago, Ryko said:

Before this goes too far, note that @S0zi0p4th is the maintainer of our repo, and there are a multitude of reasons why a mod is or is not included in our pack.  If it's purely client-side and has no impact on server performance, and causes no imbalance to the intention of gameplay (ie. you hear sounds from a greater distance than other players) then I personally have no problem with it.  However other mods have been considered and discarded for technical reasons completely unrelated to their excellence.

Understood.

 

However I do find it hard to understand how these mods affect performance, I've ran them on a multitude of servers and faced no real issues. I can understand how some people may not be able to run them and will lag from them, and their lag will de-sync on the server but if that is the case then they can choose not to use them and theoretically that is problem solved no?

[Johnson]

7 minutes ago, Ryko said:

other mods have been considered and discarded for technical reasons

Which are these? Just so I don't get my hopes up for DynaSound, Enhanced Soundscape and Blastcore (my person favourites).

[GhostDragon]

Which are these? Just so I don't get my hopes up for DynaSound, Enhanced Soundscape and Blastcore (my person favourites).

Blastcore for one i know of causes errors on the server that cause lag it also has a strange effect on smoke that I'm not sure about, but I believe this was the old version a while back before the Dev rewrote it

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using a phone app that is really irritating because it constantly advertises itself.

[Ryko]

I believe that running a client-side mod and tanking your own FPS has any effect on the server. If you can't keep up with the server - you lag. The server has its own priorities and I don't think it is waiting to catch up with each client.  If I'm wrong on that however then absolutely we will discard any mods for which we can't guarantee server performance.

 

Now if the mod requires information from the server - ie., it polls the server and demands a response - then this CAN affect server performance as you are now tasking the server with an unanticipated request.  But this is not by definition client-side only.

[Johnson]

2 minutes ago, Ryko said:

I believe that running a client-side mod and tanking your own FPS has any effect on the server. If you can't keep up with the server - you lag.

I would imagine that, in the case where a player is experiencing such poor frames he noticably effects the server, he will unlikley continue to use such client side mods.

 

But I doubt it will ever be this severe, if the mods are added.

[Amentes]

Been using Dynasound on I&A servers for a good while. In my experience, it definitely has an effect on sound travel distance; however, this largely does not affect engine noise and other such giveaways, but rather high-decibel sounds such as gunfire and the like.

 

As has been pointed out already; Effects volume already allows people to change the distance at which things are audible. Moreover, AWE is primarily a Player vs AI affair. Given those two facts, I don't believe any effect on sound travel distance to be an issue.

 

In short, I don't see an issue with Dynasound from a gameplay perspective. I have little to no experience with JSRS.

 

As for Blastcore, I do see some issues with the visual effects on explosions and smoke appearing larger or smaller than they actually are.

 

If I throw a smoke, I'd like to be sure that there are no discrepancies between how I see it, and how the enemy sees it.

 

I trust that Sozio and the Steering team remain as always, focused on the technical impact on these mods.

 

Should they have an impact on server performance, I'd hope that they get axed.

 

In my opinion, Arma is already notorious for poor performance, and I'll take my view distance over prettier explosions and more authentic sound any day.

 

Did not vote.

[Minipily]

23 minutes ago, Amentes said:

As for Blastcore, I do see some issues with the visual effects on explosions and smoke appearing larger or smaller than they actually are.

 

If I throw a smoke, I'd like to be sure that there are no discrepancies between how I see it, and how the enemy sees it.

 

I trust that Sozio and the Steering team remain as always, focused on the technical impact on these mods.

 

Should they have an impact on server performance, I'd hope that they get axed.

 

In my opinion, Arma is already notorious for poor performance, and I'll take my view distance over prettier explosions and more authentic sound any day.

I have heard of these issues before, however I believe most of the Blastcore issues date back to 2016, more notably issues with smoke grenades.

 

I don't believe Blastcore will have any negative impact on performance, as I stated beforehand though, if a player gets lag then that can de-sync the server but if that carries on then they can easily turn off said mod.

 

Yes Blastcore makes the smoke look larger and one could mistake that and think the enemy cannot see them. Additionally to my knowledge, the AI will still see through the large cloud as vanilla smoke is god awful and only white or yellow vanilla smokes act as concealment (from what I've heard, most likely only an ArmA 2 issue) where as all RHS smoke grenades are set to white against the AI meaning all act as concealment.

 

However I don't believe that this disadvantage is too great to warrant the mod getting turned down there and then. Throwing a smoke grenade to conceal yourself is something I don't see getting done all that much on AWE never mind it ever being effective either, from what I personally see the AI won't shoot at you after throwing a smoke most likely because they are re-positioning themselves to cover while you aren't shooting at them. Even when they do shoot at smoke however, Blastcore or not you'll probably still get hit as smoke attracts bullets. It's generally best to use covering smoke only when in a sticky situation as throwing some before a maneuver is only going to show the enemy where you are as I'm sure most people understand.

 

Also I believe the whole "sound mod makes sound travel further" is more so to do with ambient battle sound like you stated above, and just the fact that gunfire will echo through valleys and the like and travel further. This isn't really an advantage for players but more so just something to set the immersion higher.

 

And for your final point, like we have stated, it's completely optional! So I don't imagine you will have any performance issues if you are not using this mod, after all, if it affected server performance then we need not get this mod in the first place.

[Johnson]

37 minutes ago, Amentes said:

If I throw a smoke, I'd like to be sure that there are no discrepancies between how I see it, and how the enemy sees it.

Bearing in mind that BAF smoke grenades (greatly used on the server) have an enormous radius themselves but I don't believe they provide any extra concealment.

 

Either way, BAF smoke grenades will be used regardless of Blastcore (as they are already) and therefore nothing will change. If players wish for smoke that the expect to conceal them from the enemy and they are sure that the RHS or vanilla grenades wont do, then they can resort as they always have; to BAF.

[Minipily]

52 minutes ago, J0hnson said:

Bearing in mind that BAF smoke grenades (greatly used on the server) have an enormous radius themselves but I don't believe they provide any extra concealment.

 

Either way, BAF smoke grenades will be used regardless of Blastcore (as they are already) and therefore nothing will change. If players wish for smoke that the expect to conceal them from the enemy and they are sure that the RHS or vanilla grenades wont do, then they can resort as they always have; to BAF.

Completely forgot about those, and yes, those BAF smokes actually generate as much if not more than Blastcore. So the argument that Blastcore smoke will be used and wont work is made somewhat invalid anyway when BAF smokes are used and have the same effect.

[GhostDragon]

Baf smoke is seen by AI the same as we see it. That's why we like it as much as we do

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using a phone app that is really irritating because it constantly advertises itself.

[Borrel]

7 hours ago, J0hnson said:

Additionally, I know ALOT of people don't play on full effects volume as I do. Due to this, I hear tanks much before anyone else normally will. There is already a tactical advantage in the field, through sound specifically.

Wait, how can you even hear you tfar when in the battlefield ?

 

 

As with the mods. Would be nice to have some better sounds. I played on a server with those mods and i had terrible lag. But it could be one of them, never testes cos right then i heard of awe. 

But, if it will cause on my side i won't use them. But I do like it if the oppotunity will be there.

[Origins]

Something to consider here, visual mods, such as blastcore will alter what the player sees, however they don't change what the AI see's, therefore it provides a false sense of security. This is the big issue, as smokes which would be used to provide cover, may not provide any at all, which will cause players to be frustrated to why they died.

[GhostDragon]

Something to consider here, visual mods, such as blastcore will alter what the player sees, however they don't change what the AI see's, therefore it provides a false sense of security. This is the big issue, as smokes which would be used to provide cover, may not provide any at all, which will cause players to be frustrated to why they died.

Blastcore is one that would have to be looked at, personally I prefer without it but the sound mods are nice to have

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using a phone app that is really irritating because it constantly advertises itself.