Turn off blue skulls.

[delems]

How to turn off the blue floating skulls?

But, keep the white death marks on map?

[Mosizlak]

Get rid of them all together.  No place in any game to have GPS death coordinates. 

Was always a mistake adding them to the game.

[tallcat]

I don't believe there's a way to disable those with the current settings. If I recall correctly, it was intended to be a way to simulate unit casualty awareness--in real life if you're close to your battle group, you should know where someone in your group got hit--at least, SOMEONE should know whether it's the brass, NCO, medic, or battle buddy. That kind of situational awareness just doesn't exist in the game presently, hence the skulls, a rough stand in  *shrug*

[tater]

On 2/13/2023 at 3:25 PM, delems said:

How to turn off the blue floating skulls?

But, keep the white death marks on map?

Both should go.

1 hour ago, tallcat said:

I don't believe there's a way to disable those with the current settings. If I recall correctly, it was intended to be a way to simulate unit casualty awareness--in real life if you're close to your battle group, you should know where someone in your group got hit--at least, SOMEONE should know whether it's the brass, NCO, medic, or battle buddy. That kind of situational awareness just doesn't exist in the game presently, hence the skulls, a rough stand in  *shrug*

In game if you see the guy next to you get shot—you now have death awareness. Anyone else? Meh.

[TEX64]

I think some of you are arguing BOTH sides of the same argument.

@taterlikes to point out we do not routinely have population density and wants to remove the skulls YET the skulls do promote a decision for the responding gamers . . . either advance and press to that area to clear it out OR stay away from it.  A very high percentage of gamers are drawn to it which is not a bad thing AND creates population density in a local area.

Yes, there will be the deliberate players who enjoy slaying their opponent but they also don't like the instant contact report giving away their well-concealed position (as an example).  I can appreciate that but very rarely in this game do players in our game who have a very successful mission and don't die in game.  My immediate exception to the rule would be @Tatonkawho plays the long game as a sniper from unexpected angles and elevations.  Not everyone plays that way and WWIIOL allows each of us to play in the manner they see fit BUT our game is also designed to please a large swatch of gamers so encouraging players to the direction of combat is a good thing in spite of the decals of death.  Keeping players ignorant of a potential battle a short-distance away is never a good thing. 

As Napoleon said, "March to the sound of the guns (and the skull marks)."

[tater]

46 minutes ago, TEX64 said:

I think some of you are arguing BOTH sides of the same argument.

@taterlikes to point out we do not routinely have population density and wants to remove the skulls YET the skulls do promote a decision for the responding gamers . . . either advance and press to that area to clear it out OR stay away from it.  A very high percentage of gamers are drawn to it which is not a bad thing AND creates population density in a local area.

Yes, there will be the deliberate players who enjoy slaying their opponent but they also don't like the instant contact report giving away their well-concealed position (as an example).  I can appreciate that but very rarely in this game do players in our game who have a very successful mission and don't die in game.  My immediate exception to the rule would be @Tatonkawho plays the long game as a sniper from unexpected angles and elevations.  Not everyone plays that way and WWIIOL allows each of us to play in the manner they see fit BUT our game is also designed to please a large swatch of gamers so encouraging players to the direction of combat is a good thing in spite of the decals of death.  Keeping players ignorant of a potential battle a short-distance away is never a good thing. 

As Napoleon said, "March to the sound of the guns (and the skull marks)."

Skulls are 100% BS.

We already have magical GPS IFF HUD, when you see some friendly disappear—he's dead. Act accordingly. If you are not paying attention in that direction... how would you know anyone was dead in that area until you got there?

Everyone in this game has too much information.

[contractor]

There isnt a post in the world that could justify the call of duty skulls.

[hillstorm]

Obviously some people hate the skulls, but I don't think they're entirely bad for this game. 

1. They can promote fighting - we have a large map with small pop. Just like a cluster of ei and et marks can help draw in some combatants, a cluster of skulls also indicates a hot spot and promotes engagement. If we are concerned about realism, well, any notion of each soldier having his own dynamic "mini map" with marks from fellow soldiers on the other side of town (with no radio) is patently unrealistic as well. But marking promotes teamwork and gameplay. 

2. It gives more information than if a player just disappears from the map - because if that happens, you wouldn't know for sure if they were killed, or just despawned or even CTD or whatever. There is no equivalent for that for realism's sake. In real life, soldiers and vehicles didn't just vaporize into thin air - in our game, they can and do. 

3. The argument about situational awareness only goes so far. In this game we have a limited field of vision (and limited audio comprehension) to know what's going on. We don't have peripheral vision and the real sense of awareness that might come from that, and we won't unless/until this game steps into the realm of virtual reality (uhh.. not sure how I feel about that lol). 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the skulls should definitely stay, nor would I care too much if they went away. But I think there are pros and cons of having them in the game. 

Edited March 5, 2023 by hillstorm

[tater]

1 hour ago, hillstorm said:

Obviously some people hate the skulls, but I don't think they're entirely bad for this game. 

1. They can promote fighting - we have a large map with small pop. Just like a cluster of ei and et marks can help draw in some combatants, a cluster of skulls also indicates a hot spot and promotes engagement. If we are concerned about realism, well, any notion of each soldier having his own dynamic "mini map" with marks from fellow soldiers on the other side of town (with no radio) is patently unrealistic as well. But marking promotes teamwork and gameplay. 

2. It gives more information than if a player just disappears from the map - because if that happens, you wouldn't know for sure if they were killed, or just despawned or even CTD or whatever. There is no equivalent for that for realism's sake. In real life, players didn't just vaporize into thin air - in our game, they can and do. 

3. The argument about situational awareness only goes so far. In this game we have a limited field of vision (and limited audio comprehension) to know what's going on. We don't have peripheral vision and the real sense of awareness that might come from that, and we won't unless/until this game steps into the realm of virtual reality (uhh.. not sure how I feel about that lol). 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the skulls should definitely stay, nor would I care too much if they went away. But I think there are pros and cons of having them in the game. 

There are better solutions.

If skulls have to be a thing, then have them only on the map, and they only appear when X units die within some time frame.

BTW, to be consistent, since it's nonsensical information no one should have, why just friendly skulls?

Ie: if enemies are getting killed at some decent rate, add a red skull, if friendlies, a blue skull. So if the AI guns a few down, the defenders know where they are coming from.

[hillstorm]

51 minutes ago, tater said:

There are better solutions.

If skulls have to be a thing, then have them only on the map, and they only appear when X units die within some time frame.

BTW, to be consistent, since it's nonsensical information no one should have, why just friendly skulls?

Ie: if enemies are getting killed at some decent rate, add a red skull, if friendlies, a blue skull. So if the AI guns a few down, the defenders know where they are coming from.

I think those conditions would be reasonable. 

[tater]

The skulls in the above case would go from being a specific, "This unit died in this precise spot" to "this general area is experiencing significant combat."

Actually, I'd (maybe in 2.0?) make all the map marks foggy.

You can mark a region of the map as "armor" or a region "infantry" but not a precise location.

Edited March 5, 2023 by tater

[Dre21]

Skulls a bogus , be it white be it blue .

There used to be a time where one could set up a nice ambush and have fun , now enemy sees the skull gets a map mark to boot from a unit that just died ( think about it a dead unit giving instant battleground feed back , just stupi& ) 

As soon as that happens depending on the map mark now you got INF aka sappers, smg , rifle, zooks / shreks on their way , with the now better but not perfect visual distance for tanks a enemy can sneak around just out of visual range and find the best way in without the tank ever having the slightest idea.

Ask yourself why is the ATG game as good as none existing,  why are there only a handful tankers left in game on both sides .

 

Map marks should be available for the none existing Scout unit we don't have , and the scout cars , no more of these units and the fog of war becomes rather dense , maybe planes get to mark too even that we don't have scout planes , but due to their speed the map marks would rather be inconsistent and far less accurate which I could get on board with .

But in my eyes and opinion map marks be it skulls or the other marks actually thinned the player pool .

 

P.s wasn't skulls introduced by CRS 1.0 to appease the Chinese market and for some reason it made it into our game , I remember something that the Chinese players back then asked for it when the game ran on 2 servers one for us and the other for the Chinese market .

[TR6AL]

This is just my opinion but I think a lot of this “extra” stuff is due to the lack of actual communications and structure which you would have in a real life . Same with marking things on the map. 

[tater]

36 minutes ago, TR6AL said:

This is just my opinion but I think a lot of this “extra” stuff is due to the lack of actual communications and structure which you would have in a real life . Same with marking things on the map. 

The problem is that in RL forces were not nearly as connected as you imagine. In old wargames (miniatures, etc), well done games would have movement plotting, and delays. In some cases blind movement and a ref.

Units with radios could radio enemy contact, but think about what that means in RL vs ww2ol.

In ww2ol a tank advances and gets hit and instantly destroyed. The skull is marked, and if the player saw where the ambush was, he might even chat/voice, "ATG SE of my skull in trees." So everyone instantly sees he's dead, and where, and if someone is paying attention to chat, they mark an ATG SE in trees. Same scenario, but RL. The tank would be in a platoon of tanks. One of the 4 gets hit and instantly killed. The CO saw the ATG fired... but he and his crew are now all dead, he can't radio from the grave. There are 3 tanks remaining in the group, and if the ATG was smart, maybe he didn't fire at the 1st one—who is ahead of the dead tank, and did not see it hit. Of the 2 that could see it, how many DID see it? 0, 1, or both? If neither saw it, the 3 tanks all near each other are sill unaware—and certainly no forces not right there know at all. If 1 saw it hit, they can get on the radio (assuming they have one and it works) and say tank X was hit and out of action. The local tanks now know... does anyone else? Who is listening to their radios? Certainly almost no infantry in the area know at all unless they witnessed it happening.

A platoon of inf advances into a position that the enemy has covered with a MG. The squad that made contact comes under fire, and someone is killed. The squad knows someone is dead at some level, depends on how spread out they are how many know this. The platoon knows they came under fire, they heard the MG and maybe some yelling. Nothing specific. The platoon leader might find out when the SL sends a runner to let their PL know that there's a MG emplacement on their right flank, and that they lost a guy. This local group now has what we'd have as a map mark, but again, this is lagged. Contact, drop to ground, send a runner to PL, PL plans what next, runners let the squads know the plan. In ww2ol contact, dead inf marked with GPS precision, dead guy respawns and puts a mark on the appropriate side of the exact building the MG fire came from. Because magic.

Edited March 9, 2023 by tater

[jester]

38 minutes ago, TR6AL said:

This is just my opinion but I think a lot of this “extra” stuff is due to the lack of actual communications and structure which you would have in a real life . Same with marking things on the map. 

There is a difference, though, between the automatic placement mechanic and manually guesstimating markings. The line is drawn between them imo. To me, I've always thought it takes away from the hardcore realism angle the game is trying to take, but I understand where it could help new players. I think somebody suggested years ago that the feature only be available to accounts in the early ranks and then removed, which seemed like a fair compromise.