Can we talk about the FOV exploit?

@thecobra7191 said in Can we talk about the FOV exploit?:

@needsmokes also, lets say they remove the config file. What is stopping people from buying an ultrawide monitor? Are they exploiting too? It has the same effect, just with slightly less vertical fov. Ban all ultrawide monitor users too?

It's not about the advantage it creates but breaking xbox'es TOS. Having wider monitor or xbox controller with 4 extra button does not break it and though is allowed.

@perfidious6751 They need an anticheat lol. The reason you dont see cheaters generally is because this game is not that competitive and not very popular in cheating communities. Even if people are cheating its hard to spot, since theres no longer wallbangs. A lot more is possible than you think, ive seen some pretty nasty private cheats of a guy just shooting his blunder into thin air and one-blundering someone across the map in arena, basically having all his pellets teleported to whoever his crosshair is closest to im guessing.
If cheating becomes more popular in SoT they are going to have some real problems :D

@limend can you cite the part of Xbox TOS that says config file editing is forbidden?

@thecobra7191 I doubt there is a part. But rare themselves DID say they would ban people for it. So if I were you I would just stick with 90

@thecobra7191 vii. Harmful behavior has no place on Xbox

• Use “mods” in games that do not allow modded content

And I guess this could be used against changing FoV in files even though advantage it gives is minor:

• Manipulate game stats to gain a competitive advantage against other players

As modding mean modifying hardware/software (in this case SoT files) It's not allowed.

@zappychan said in Can we talk about the FOV exploit?:

There's been an exploit in the game I refuse to use to change to 120 FOV and coming from games like tf2 where we could change it on demand - I can confidently say it's a massive advantage.

So I have a few thoughts and questions here. Is this exploit bannable? If not, why not? It definitely shouldn't be allowed especially in a game with crossplay.

I was kinda hoping this would've been fixed by now but it's been a long time. What's the deal?

what do you mean fov was a tool to help see stuff i just don't use it but i could use it i don't get what's wrong with it

@limend that sounds more like cheating in general to me. Theres no parralel between modifying the game to make a cheat and editing a config file thats readily available to you.

@thecobra7191 You're right. There is no parralel between modifying the game to make a cheat and editing a config files but no matter what were the intentions it's still modding.

@perfidious6751 said in Can we talk about the FOV exploit?:

Then disallow cross-platform play. There is no way you are going to be able to truly enable a "fair" playing field in terms of hardware between desktops and consoles. Different controls & schemas, hardware performance differences, in your example viewport differences, etc.

Like I said in my post that you were replying It's not as much about the advantage but breaking TOS. It's impossible to secure fair play to everyone unless everyone plays on identical devices wit identical peripherals with identcal ping (which is impossible) but even if everyone had identical gadgets it would still be about players skill. Sure higher frames and mouse with leds may make you Littlebit better but it's nothing that will make you hit 100% of your shots for just having monitor that can display 360 frames as you still need to be skilled.

There's a design decision to be made about how much variance in advantages is allowed in a game. It's a balance of playability vs. fairness across all configurations. it doesn't matter if it's fair if it's unplayable for a platform and conversely, even if it's built to be "ideal" for each platform, that doesn't mean you can necessarily sacrifice all sense of fairness for that either.

I really don't understand what you are trying to say here?

The issue of FOV has to do with our distance to the screen. For desktops, it is natural for the user to focus on the screen to the point where they lose vision of the area around the monitor. This results in the screen-view directly affecting your brain's sense of balance and environement tracking. This doesn't happen for large room areas (consoles or an HTPC with a TV) because your brain still registers the area around the TV. The result is that desktop users need a larger FOV in order for their brain to be able to track movement without getting nausea. If I sit 4-5 feet away from my monitor, I don't get nausea from this game. But then again, I'm not going to do that, this is a PC and a monitor, not a console.etting nausea. If I sit 4-5 feet away from my monitor, I don't get nausea from this game. But then again, I'm not going to do that, this is a PC and a monitor, not a console.

This is the primary reason why games do not implement camera rolling (where the view literally rotates/spins). It causes nausea as your brain tries to map the input from the fluid sensory input in your ears to what your vision sees as "up". Any mismatch and you get nausea.

So, I decided to test a high FOV last night (via configuration file changes only, and FYI, I was doing exclusively PvE while testing so don't think I was abusing).

There are animation and model issues related to the first-person space camera. For example, the player's arms in the first-person space aren't long enough, you can see the end of the model. The guns have the same issue, their models don't look proper at a high FOV. Swimming and various attack and movement animations are distorted and the image is overly warped/skewed compared to other games at the same FOV.

If this was increased past the limits it is at now immediately, many issues would become glaringly apparent. There is a lot more work required to massively increase the FOV besides performance issues on other platforms.

Rare is going to have to change how the first-person space camera reacts to different FOVs before they can enable it. So to everyone complaining, there is a lot of work that will need to be done before you will see this change officially supported on desktops. And then there's also the issue of PvP FOV balancing.
And before any of you make a comment about "Rare's bad design". Most of the games you play have tonnes of tricks in them to make them work. It's just that this game was not designed to operate at higher FOVs, which was fine for console play. You'd be surprised how many of your games would break or act weird if certain small things were allowed.

Nonetheless, there will need to be some changes to the FOV for desktop users because of the aforementioned issues involving nausea and related symptoms. This issue shows that the design is too much in favor of fairness for consoles over playability for desktops, as well as certain design decisions for the consoles requiring a lot of refactoring work to fix desktop issues.

I am confused at the end. Half of this is stuff I know/agree with and I have no idea why you tagged me for all of this. I know the problems with higher FoV. I Literally say having more buttons/frames is accepted because it doesn't break ToS and reason it is NOT ALLOWED AT THE CURRENT TIME is because you have to edit files which goes against TOS. This post was just confusing for me as I have no idea why you have the need to tell me all of this?

@burnbacon said in Can we talk about the FOV exploit?:

Question is. How would you report someone?
If you suspect them.

You need actual proof.

You need to modify the game files on on the steam version to do this so it is bannable.

@itz-majman yes you can. The config file is empty by default, so unless theres some niche situation they would need it i dont see why it should even exist.

@limend depends on your definition of modding, and xbox's definition of modding. I would not classify config file editing as modding the game. Theres a reason its referred to as a config file - configure things that the game already supports. As long as xbox doesnt have a definite description of what "modding" covers, you cabt really say its against TOS cause no one really knows for sure.

@gallerine5582 it's not changing "core files". Only modifying a config file. No one should be banned for this, Rare just needs to change the file system on the steam version so these config files are protected and can't be modified.

@turkaspy where'd they say they were going to ban people for it? I want to see this

Its worth saying its bannable to get people to stop using it. But I dont think its really worth banning over. Maybe a temp? Idk. Just remove the ability to do it.

@punchytootle Various support tickets. Don't have the screenshots but yeah its bannable. Weird that they haven't patched it yet tho.

They haven't done a public announcement about it if that's what your asking.

@closinghare208 said in Can we talk about the FOV exploit?:

@zappychan said in Can we talk about the FOV exploit?:

There's been an exploit in the game I refuse to use to change to 120 FOV and coming from games like tf2 where we could change it on demand - I can confidently say it's a massive advantage.

So I have a few thoughts and questions here. Is this exploit bannable? If not, why not? It definitely shouldn't be allowed especially in a game with crossplay.

I was kinda hoping this would've been fixed by now but it's been a long time. What's the deal?

what do you mean fov was a tool to help see stuff i just don't use it but i could use it i don't get what's wrong with it

The issue is less that people use it and more just... people who are on the windows store version or xbox can't use it. It's an exclusive advantage to steam users editing config files past what the game normally allows - and the game isn't really designed to let you see so much.

The first example that comes to mind is that normally on the wheel you can't see the ladders beside you on the sloop but editing your FOV and suddenly you can see them giving you a distinct advantage.

Just another thing that PvP players use to act like they're good at the game.

As someone who's primarily PvP myself, it's disheartening to see people use this exploit to get ahead of others, and completely demeans the players who have taken time to hone their PvP skills.

@valor-omega said in Can we talk about the FOV exploit?:

Just another thing that PvP players use to act like they're good at the game.

As someone who's primarily PvP myself, it's disheartening to see people use this exploit to get ahead of others, and completely demeans the players who have taken time to hone their PvP skills.

I'm not gonna claim to be a PVP master but it's a big part of the game for me too. I also get behind that sentiment where I just can't respect people who need to use exploits to min-max the game in every advantage they can. I guess it's usually "fair" because I can exploit the game just like others do but I really don't want to.

They could honestly take a play from old Westwood Studios playbook. Scan the config files on initial bootup of the game, anyone who has unmodified (90 FoV) config file gets into normal servers. Players who have modified (91+ FoV) configs can only connect to other players/servers with modified configs)

Although I guess this would be just another iteration of xbox with controller servers and further divide the player base BUT it would give many parties what they want, the casual and PvE focused type players less of a competitive opponent/someone more closer matched in skill and hardware levels and the 91+ FoV PvP oriented players some competition which I always hear them complain is hard to find in adventure.

@kommodoreyenser Apart from a few people with motion sickness people aren't adjusting their config fov to be matched against a higher skilled opponent. They just want more advantages that others might not have.

Even if it kills a bit of the population, I say it's fine to banish them to their own server for cheating with the game like this. It's a lot less harsh than banning them and would encourage them to.... ya know, stop cheating? lol

@galactic-geek google render resolution scale, im not even going to answer you cause that response is so comically ignorant. Render resolution scale has nothing to do with render distance.

@galactic-geek this is just false, you can see neither ladder while on the wheel at higher fovs. Its not illegal to do just an ounce of research before you open your mouth, you know?