widescreen resolution removed from the game.

0 years, 1 day since my question how we went from "Take notes everyone - this is how you actually make good arguments." to "There are no defensible arguments in favor of black bars, and none have been offered in 1 year, 291 days."

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

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Echothesis wrote:

If it was, fixing said issue is still the way, and/or covering it with fog of war, not with unreliable black bars.

I don't know where you get your sources from, but fog of war is not more reliable than limiting aspect ratio. And let's get the facts straight, it's aspect ratio, not black bars.

Forcing unintended aspect ratios IS what causes bugs. As far as i know, there wasn't a limit for aspect ratio set in place because it was never needed and the cut off for projectiles and visible interactions was alredy very generous. When ultra wide became a thing, the issue became known, and they were forced to address the issue. Limiting the aspect ratio is, by far, the easiest way to fix this issue in, let's be honest, a very old code.

Their excuse that it causes more server lag is weak, there's no denying, but only a fool or an abuser would keep saying that it's ok to constantly see (or not see) something the developers never intended anyone to realistically see.

Fog of war is more reliable because
1) It cannot be bypassed without extensive reverse engineering of the client no one would bother with, and thus can also serve as actual fair play component if skills range is limited (which D4 has btw, you cannot shoot as far as in poe there).
2) It looks much more plausible than black bars to average Joe, so not many people would even consider bypassing it just to see more stuff.

My sources are being an arpg developer and having (rather amateur) reverser knowledge on the side.

And again, in poe what you see on screen is irrelevant for endgame, enemies will inevitably hit you, and you will have huge mapping aoe. Kiting is not a thing after Acts, you won't get any loot if every map takes 20+ min. As for bosses, they are dps check with their degen ground, maneuvering based on extra view area won't save you if you lack dps to oneshot bosses. (And only Sirus has large enough arena in the first place).

I agree that the root cause of this split-second black bar fix likely was GGG not liking ugly visual glitches seen at the sides, not server performance or fair play or whatever. But let's face it, this game has so many ugly visual moments, from overlapping VFX clusterfuck to screenwide loot to specific MTX glitches, that it doesn't make sense they chose aspect ratio to double down at, leaving other problems unchecked.

It is players choice to get themselves UW monitor, so why on earth GGG won't let players choose for themselves? If players find disappearing mobs ugly (and GGG remains adamant on not fixing it properly without bars), they can limit aspect ratio, if they find black bars cringe, let them enjoy panorama, it won't affect combat.

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Echothesis wrote:

Fog of war is more reliable because
1) It cannot be bypassed without extensive reverse engineering of the client no one would bother with, and thus can also serve as actual fair play component if skills range is limited (which D4 has btw, you cannot shoot as far as in poe there).
2) It looks much more plausible than black bars to average Joe, so not many people would even consider bypassing it just to see more stuff.

1) It most certainly can be bypassed and it's not immune to bugs being created because of, again, unintended interactions or code changes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1d8ebnp/todays_update_introduced_a_fog_of_war_bug/
https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1d8enep/whats_happening_with_fog_of_war_i_cant_see_enemys/
2) From what previous arguments accert, there's an alredy very small percentage of ultra wide users, so the Average Joe having to worry about fog of war is nonsensical and innacurate.

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Echothesis wrote:

And again, in poe what you see on screen is irrelevant for endgame, enemies will inevitably hit you, and you will have huge mapping aoe. Kiting is not a thing after Acts, you won't get any loot if every map takes 20+ min. As for bosses, they are dps check with their degen ground, maneuvering based on extra view area won't save you if you lack dps to oneshot bosses. (And only Sirus has large enough arena in the first place).

Now that's you being biased. Melee doesn't have any of these luxuries (except maybe dps at high budget), but this is not the place or the time to argue melee x ranged.

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Echothesis wrote:

I agree that the root cause of this split-second black bar fix likely was GGG not liking ugly visual glitches seen at the sides, not server performance or fair play or whatever. But let's face it, this game has so many ugly visual moments, from overlapping VFX clusterfuck to screenwide loot to specific MTX glitches, that it doesn't make sense they chose aspect ratio to double down at, leaving other problems unchecked.

One mistake or flaw doesn't excuse another mistake or flaw. MTX glitches, clusterfucks and what not are directly due power creep. Seeing more of the screen would be even more critical if the game was slower.

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Echothesis wrote:

It is players choice to get themselves UW monitor, so why on earth GGG won't let players choose for themselves? If players find disappearing mobs ugly (and GGG remains adamant on not fixing it properly without bars), they can limit aspect ratio, if they find black bars cringe, let them enjoy panorama, it won't affect combat.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

but only a fool or an abuser would keep saying that it's ok to constantly see (or not see) something the developers never intended anyone to realistically see.

There's no reliable way to future proof and this thread is proof of that.

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tackle70 wrote:

This makes absolutely no sense at all.

Black bars are not defensible

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Echothesis wrote:

Cannot find GGG-based information about this, what kind of issue was that? Monsters along with other VFX disappearing from view on client, but still can be interacted/killed on server? This shouldn't be an engine-breaking issue, just visual inconsistency. If it was, fixing said issue is still the way, and/or covering it with fog of war, not with unreliable black bars.

Numerous people already tested/proved no gamebreaking issue on their end so far (moderators will jump if I say more about this:) )

This speaks volumes.....its literally on PAGE 1 on this exact thread. The second post.

Also......it was released by GGG less than a day after the patch.

Again, "numerous <anonymous> people" is completely meaningless when the COMPANY is the one producing this information. That kind of argument is as facetious as people complaining about RNG and how "their experience" doesn't match the datamined numbers and, in some cases, developer-provided numbers.

Who are you to speak on the "correct" way to fix this? Are you a GGG employee? Were you involved in the design or meetings in any way? Do you know the depth of the problem? Have you ever created a multi-million dollar global game? Come on man.....Claiming to be an arpg developer is essentially meaningless: I am also an "arpg developer" because I created a d2 mod back in the day. What's your point?

And even if you WERE an arpg developer with actual titles and releases and FULL projects under your belt.....you STILL haven't been involved at all in THIS game. So I would reiterate: how can you possibly claim the "correct" answer?

I can also do that: instead of black bars, the "correct" answer was for GGG to close the game entirely and devote all their attention to PoE 2. Because that would have fixed the problem. No black bars. No visual issues at all.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

This speaks volumes.....its literally on PAGE 1 on this exact thread. The second post.

Also......it was released by GGG less than a day after the patch.

Again, "numerous <anonymous> people" is completely meaningless when the COMPANY is the one producing this information. That kind of argument is as facetious as people complaining about RNG and how "their experience" doesn't match the datamined numbers and, in some cases, developer-provided numbers.

Who are you to speak on the "correct" way to fix this? Are you a GGG employee? Were you involved in the design or meetings in any way? Do you know the depth of the problem? Have you ever created a multi-million dollar global game? Come on man.....Claiming to be an arpg developer is essentially meaningless: I am also an "arpg developer" because I created a d2 mod back in the day. What's your point?

And even if you WERE an arpg developer with actual titles and releases and FULL projects under your belt.....you STILL haven't been involved at all in THIS game. So I would reiterate: how can you possibly claim the "correct" answer?

I can also do that: instead of black bars, the "correct" answer was for GGG to close the game entirely and devote all their attention to PoE 2. Because that would have fixed the problem. No black bars. No visual issues at all.

That post from page 1 had been tossed around a lot, including a few pages ago here, ofc I've seen it lol. And it doesn't have any more details you or I can guess. "Serialisation distances, a limit had to be set". OK.

"Who are you to speak about such rocket science" is demagogic, you might as well repost it to every second thread on this forum. In fact I remember you too daring to have your own opinion about how GGG does things more than once :) As in, who are you to speak about "correct" way of balancing or whatever topics interested you most?

This is a forum, not a GGG directors board and we all know feedback here is irrelevant for GGG. If you are confused on why am I doing this, its for sports, to hone my debating skills in extremely hostile environment where those who disagree constantly fall back to cheap tactics of latching to one phrase and try to invalidate everything else you say based on it, while being fully backed by moderators.

<error: On-topic arguments not found, terminating output>

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One mistake or flaw doesn't excuse another mistake or flaw. MTX glitches, clusterfucks and what not are directly due power creep. Seeing more of the screen would be even more critical if the game was slower

Exactly, and as long as poe remains fast in every sense (characters running speed, attack speed, dps, recovery, timed league mechanics, timed boss battles (degen ground)), aspect ratio remains irrelevant compared to other games where "UW = unfair advantage" doctrine came from. It is not humanly possible to keep watching the mess, every poe player switches to blindfight mode eventually.

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Echothesis wrote:

Exactly, and as long as poe remains fast in every sense (characters running speed, attack speed, dps, recovery, timed league mechanics, timed boss battles (degen ground)), aspect ratio remains irrelevant compared to other games where "UW = unfair advantage" doctrine came from. It is not humanly possible to keep watching the mess, every poe player switches to blindfight mode eventually.

Which boils the question down to "Should we see something that wasn't designed to be seen?" and the devs answered with No. It's that simple.

The only thing left is a dude that can't let go of seeing shit he's not supposed to see to begin with. Imagine wasting 2 grand for the sole purpose of seeing more in-game. UnDeFenSiBlE.

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AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

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Echothesis wrote:

Exactly, and as long as poe remains fast in every sense (characters running speed, attack speed, dps, recovery, timed league mechanics, timed boss battles (degen ground)), aspect ratio remains irrelevant compared to other games where "UW = unfair advantage" doctrine came from. It is not humanly possible to keep watching the mess, every poe player switches to blindfight mode eventually.

Which boils the question down to "Should we see something that wasn't designed to be seen?" and the devs answered with No. It's that simple.

The only thing left is a dude that can't let go of seeing shit he's not supposed to see to begin with. Imagine wasting 2 grand for the sole purpose of seeing more in-game. UnDeFenSiBlE.

Imagine wasting 10 grand on top of the line pc upgrades every year, yet Nvidia somehow broke capitalization record recently. Are you sure it is a solid strategy for a dev making your game hold the most enthusiastic clients back because of dev's inability to make it shine on newest hardware instead?

As for "they decided bars, so you should suck it up and play", ok. If you wish to view this as isolated case never happening before, that is. UW was fine for 10+ years, then they woke up. LMB instant bind was fine for 10+ years, until Mr.Roberts didn't like it. Alt gems, div/ex swap. Decisions like this are against common sense, so you shouldn't be surprised by some people trolling GGG over it :)

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Echothesis wrote:

As for "they decided bars, so you should suck it up and play", ok. If you wish to view this as isolated case never happening before, that is. UW was fine for 10+ years, then they woke up. LMB instant bind was fine for 10+ years, until Mr.Roberts didn't like it. Alt gems, div/ex swap. Decisions like this are against common sense, so you shouldn't be surprised by some people trolling GGG over it :)

So black bars are bad because of div/ex swap (div/ex swap was a great decision, RMT’ers were hit too, win/win)? Sorry, this is sidetracking it is no longer related to UW.

Black bars is poor man's decision compared to alternatives desribed above many times. With GGG's messiah ambitions they show off when rolling another patch of turning the balance upside down or deleting Standard players resources without as much as public acknowledgement, they could handle UW problems better.