Radars in Frontlines and Hunts - Any word from SE?

[Kallera]

This is exactly how it works now. The server only tells your client about entities in your area of interest, which is a bubble centered on your character with a radius of about 50-60 yalms. Radar apps cannot detect marks outside of this bubble because the client simply does not know about them.

As a few others have mentioned, there is basically nothing they can do to stop the radar apps from a technical standpoint. Something will need to change in the way the Hunt system is designed if they want to mitigate the impact of these kinds of programs.

If radar apps also "reads" player locations in frontlines pvp, then it is providing tactical information that normal play never intended to give on the map.

Knowing where your opponents are massed or hidden is a huge strategic advantage.

Feasible or not, this cannot stand. As it is already impacting the experience and fair play of users.

[Ninix]

Feasible or not, this cannot stand. As it is already impacting the experience and fair play of users.

That's nice and all, but it doesn't really matter. This is an issue literally all games are vulnerable to, and there is no way to really stop it short of adding some cheat detection to the client, which is just going to start a neverending arms race between SE and people who create the cheats. It's expensive, time consuming, and not really worth the effort if the game is designed properly. While the radar app definitely gives you an advantage, it's certainly not one I would call a "huge strategic advantage", since the range is very limited and anything the radar shows is also visible in the game world.

It's a slightly larger advantage in Hunts, since it lets people just run around a zone semi-AFK and not really paying any attention until they see a red blip on the radar, but it does not remove the need to actually run around the whole zone.

This is why I feel that, even though the Radar app is certainly cheating, it's really not that big of a deal. The *design* of the hunt system itself is the bigger issue. The rewards are far too great, which causes huge numbers of people to participate. This in turn causes zone servers to lag and marks to die in 30 seconds. This in turn causes the community to demand that people wait for 5 minutes before pulling a mark to allow their whole linkshell to show up and tag the mob. This in turn causes anyone who pulls early to be verbally abused and blacklisted by half the server. This in turn causes the community to go to shit in general.

None of this is being caused by the Radar, and it will not go away if the Radar is (somehow) eliminated. It's being caused by a poorly designed game system, and can only be fixed with modifications to the game design.

[Hybris-Maenad]

snip

Hence why I created a thread that doesn't have any recommendations. I would just like to hear something from SE as to whether they plan to do anything to disrupt this.

[Kallera]

That's nice and all, but it doesn't really matter. This is an issue literally all games are vulnerable to, and there is no way to really stop it short of adding some cheat detection to the client, which is just going to start a neverending arms race between SE and people who create the cheats. It's expensive, time consuming, and not really worth the effort if the game is designed properly. While the radar app definitely gives you an advantage, it's certainly not one I would call a "huge strategic advantage", since the range is very limited and anything the radar shows is also visible in the game world...

The ability to predict a flanking maneuver, to determine reconnaissance attempts and ambushes from character model distance(considerably more that what we have now.), to have 360 degree vision through barriers and rocks?

I stand by my assessment. An app that can do this is a bigger deal than you think in PvP.