End Game Spectator - Feedback

[.kju 3244]

@ neokika

Thanks. Lets gather some resources here first to get some more exposure and feedback from the general public.

 

Engine issues (some might be outdated):

• You don't see where another player is actually aiming at (with floating cursor) (unsure about AI - looks weird at least how they engage)
• Gunner view (for infantry at least) with AI looks often very weird
• Group/Commander view is kinda bugged in various ways (also doesnt offer actually commander zoom out view as a player commander with 3rd person active which would make sense)
• You don't have exactly the view the watched unit has (player and AI) (like if he is 1st or 3rd view or in optics view, if he zooms in or out, if he uses optics modes, is looking at the map/gpus/watch/inventory, etc) - not sure about NV or Binocular use
• You cannot watch the commander if there is a gunner
• You cannot watch multiple gunners
• You don't see if a watched player is using VOIP or watched players do
• No really static player list (playableUnits doesnt have static ids - so on respawn the new unit is last in the array)
• Missing 'over the shoulder' 3d view (like common in console FPS games)

 

 

Missing features:

• Map click on players (markers with names) to easily switch to between and to desired unit
• Kill cam effect (like in OFP SP slowly zoom out, or to look at the killer)
• Bullet cam
• Scenic camera view (views - top down, flyby, chase)
• Ability to toggle different PiPEffects
• Ability to set Camera Attributes
• The user interface and key shortcuts should be expanded significantly
• Interface to displays variety of statistics (for both individual participants and for entire sides) (configurable!)
• Saving feature to replay the mission (at least positions and events (fired, damaged, killed, respawned, etc) as markers)
• Unit tags (togglable)
• 3d marker and map markers to visualize unit fire (could be also for other events like damaged, killed, respawned, etc)
• Ability to reassign/customize key shortcuts

 

 

Notable community solutions:

CSSA3 - A Spectator Script for Arma 3 - https://forums.bistudio.com/topic/177433-cssa3-a-spectator-script-for-arma-3/, video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7mbrZOK5MA

ACE3 Specator - http://ace3mod.com/wiki/feature/spectator.html

Kegetys Spectator Script - http://ferstaberinde.com/f2/en/index.php?title=Kegetys_Spectator_Script

[WolfenswanFA 19]

Notable community solutions:

Kegetys Spectator Script - http://ferstaberinde.com/f2/en/index.php?title=Kegetys_Spectator_Script

 

I don't think Kegetys is actively maintained anymore. We've created our own Spectator script for F3:

https://github.com/ferstaberinde/F3/tree/master/f/spect

http://ferstaberinde.com/f3/en//index.php?title=F3_Spectator_Script

[neokika 62]

Hi @.kju, sorry for the late response.

 

 

 

• You don't see where another player is actually aiming at (with floating cursor) (unsure about AI - looks weird at least how they engage)
• You don't have exactly the view the watched unit has (player and AI) (like if he is 1st or 3rd view or in optics view, if he zooms in or out, if he uses optics modes, is looking at the map/gpus/watch/inventory, etc) - not sure about NV or Binocular use

 

Yes, and while this is not a simple task, it's something we would like to improve upon.

Major blockers being new network messages having to be added to remote machines can have this information, plus, it is not as simple as only send it to people spectating, nor only when it's needed, so to make this happen, additional network traffic would have to be added to normal gameplay.

 

 

 

• You cannot watch the commander if there is a gunner
• You cannot watch multiple gunners

 

You sure? We've fixed similar issue a while ago, that prevented a player from viewing every single unit on a vehicle (some seats would take priority and could not be switched from).

If possible, take a look at the current spectator and check if you spot issues and feel free to write them here, I will gladly take a look.

 

 

 

• No really static player list (playableUnits doesnt have static ids - so on respawn the new unit is last in the array)

 

In the current version of the spectator, dead units are never removed from the list, only their icon changes so spectator knows it's not currently alive. And once they respawn, same index in the list should be preserved. Unless they change index within their group, which does not happen with respawn.

 

 

 

• Missing 'over the shoulder' 3d view (like common in console FPS games)

 

While the Spectator doesn't have a shoulder cam, it does have a 3th person orbit view around target unit / vehicle.

 

 

 

• Map click on players (markers with names) to easily switch to between and to desired unit
• Unit tags (togglable)
• 3d marker and map markers to visualize unit fire

 

These are features already implemented in the Spectator.

 

 

 

• The user interface and key shortcuts should be expanded significantly

 

Agreed.

 

 

 

• Ability to reassign/customize key shortcuts

 

Camera related controls already support customization, the Spectator uses as base the Zeus / 3DEN camera.

 

 

In general, there's a few suggestions here that I quite like, thanks for the feedback.

[lsd 147]

Couple of suggestions:

Hide the mouse cursor when the HUD is toggled with 'H' - The cursor ruins recording videos when you're panning around.

 

Allow show/hide of entity/location sidebar by pressing 'E' like the sidebar in Zeus/Eden.

[IGG Jaypee 10]

Running this:

_KeyDown = (findDisplay 46) displayAddEventHandler ["KeyUp", "hint str _this"];

shows hints correctly in the game. So showing the keys pressed and all the rest of the parameters passed by the events. Though when going into the EG spectator it stops working. Am I doing something wrong?

[zapata 1]

 

Quote

 

      On ‎19‎.‎06‎.‎2016 at 1:38 AM, galzohar said:

It also appears that if you hover on the map you can spot enemies from sides that are not whitelisted and click them to spectate from them. This breaks the competitive side of DTAS, in which you are not supposed to be able to see anything other than first person views of friendly players.

 

 

Quote

 

 

 

This is not by design, sounds like a bug. Will take a look. For tracking proposes I'd recommend to create a bug report at https://feedback.bistudio.com/.

Thanks, and I hope this will somewhat help you having a more splendid take at spectating. ;)

 

 

This is not fixed yet...  Killing PvP..

 

[neokika 62]

On 3/5/2017 at 10:11 PM, zapata said:

 

 

 

This is not fixed yet...  Killing PvP..

 

 

Pushed a fix to dev branch.

Sorry for the delay.

[SuicideKing 233]

@neokika @zozo
We're trying to integrate Revive and Spectator into our F3 fork, had the following feedback/suggestions:

• Could the camera be allowed to zoom out further when following in third person mode?
• The little markers above everyone's head tend to  disappear sometimes, for no apparent reason
• Sometimes some effects from End Game Revive seem to carry over to Spectator (vignette effect or blurry screen)
• Some way of extending the spectator for admins/mods would be useful...

[SuicideKing 233]

Example of second point in my last post:

All the markers randomly disappeared, didn't turn back on. For some other people, they never turned on at all.

 

This happens only in free camera mode.

[SilentSpike 84]

4 hours ago, SuicideKing said:

This happens only in free camera mode.

 

I wrote the ACE spectator code (which is now largely based on the EG spectator code since the rewrite) and can provide some insight on the source of this bug:

 

The commands for drawing icons/lines in 3D have no visible effect when the current `cameraOn` unit is not alive. There's a bit of weirdness to this in that it never seems to happen in respawn modes 2/3 where the player is still associated somehow with their corpse for the duration of the `respawnDelay` mission attribute. However, in other respawn modes where the player dies permanently they seem to become disassociated with their corpse after a seemingly random time (some kind of engine garbage collection) which is when the icons stop drawing (I'm guessing what's actually happening is that the AI brain associated with the unit is no longer present - and yes, players have an AI brain of sorts).

 

That's the reason why it only fails in free camera, because behind the scenes the view is switched back to the player unit. The way I've fixed this in ACE is to have a temporary agent unit which I switch the view to while in free camera.

 

Reference: https://github.com/acemod/ACE3/pull/5868

Edited January 9, 2018 by SilentSpike
Added reference

[SuicideKing 233]

Cheers man, thanks a lot. We'll see if we can do something about this!