widescreen resolution removed from the game.

I love how bad faith he is. Makes it comedic to read. 100% GGG reading this reaffirming their stance to remove a broken advantage. His entire argument is I don't like black bars. But when anyone brings up the reasons he ignores and says there is no reason. 10/10 entitled.

Okay, I am back home, lets try this again from the very beginning :)

"

Universalis wrote:

Imagine if POE2 is a success and that ultra wide is implemented: trolling 24/7 showing how you can see, or even hit, bosses or packs others players can't... :-D

You can hit masses of monsters other players (builds) can't regardless of black bars, monsters being even farther from you that black bars cover. In fact this is most efficient way of playing poe for at least several years. So why implement such archaic and for-many-annoying change if it doesn't affect gameplay?

"

Dozer72 wrote:

I love how bad faith he is. Makes it comedic to read. 100% GGG reading this reaffirming their stance to remove a broken advantage. His entire argument is I don't like black bars. But when anyone brings up the reasons he ignores and says there is no reason. 10/10 entitled.

You can hit masses of monsters other players (builds) can't regardless of black bars, monsters being even farther from you that black bars cover. In fact this is most efficient way of playing poe for at least several years. So why implement such archaic and for-many-annoying change if it doesn't affect gameplay?

"

AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

...
"Fog of war" on any RTS worth their weight is alredy "black bars" until you actually discover that particular terrain.
...

A big until. There is a reason whole industry moved away from 4:3, gaming comfort should be prioritized over lazy tweaks that don't even get their declared job done. A hundred companies spent their resources on implementing fog of war in their top-down RTS and top-down Arpg, and here we learn they were all fools, only GGG does it right by just slamming black bars :)

I think its rather silly to keep talking about the "advantage" aspect of having the ultrawide screen, and talk more about the ACTUAL problems that the devs themselves told us about....this whole "being able to see more of the screen" thing was very minor compared to the real issue of the ultrawide resolution.

The fact that it was causing issues with the way the game was programmed and messing with visuals and rendering in a way that they did not like.

Advantage doesn't matter, preference doesn't matter, comfort doesn't matter. It simply DID NOT WORK the way GGG wanted it to work and so they scrapped it. Who the hell are all of you to tell them that their programming decision with their game is unacceptable?

Inb4 we start the whole merry-go-round "but they are wrong on their reasoning!"....please. I'm going to trust the actual creators of the game over random petulant children online any day of the week.

This entire thread hinges on one or two guys claiming that there was "never an issue" prior to the removal of ultrawide support, when we heard from GGG themselves that there WAS an issue.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

I think its rather silly to keep talking about the "advantage" aspect of having the ultrawide screen, and talk more about the ACTUAL problems that the devs themselves told us about....this whole "being able to see more of the screen" thing was very minor compared to the real issue of the ultrawide resolution.

The fact that it was causing issues with the way the game was programmed and messing with visuals and rendering in a way that they did not like.

Advantage doesn't matter, preference doesn't matter, comfort doesn't matter. It simply DID NOT WORK the way GGG wanted it to work and so they scrapped it. Who the hell are all of you to tell them that their programming decision with their game is unacceptable?

Inb4 we start the whole merry-go-round "but they are wrong on their reasoning!"....please. I'm going to trust the actual creators of the game over random petulant children online any day of the week.

This entire thread hinges on one or two guys claiming that there was "never an issue" prior to the removal of ultrawide support, when we heard from GGG themselves that there WAS an issue.

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:) )

"

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.

"

AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

I don't know where you get your sources from, but fog of war is not more reliable than limiting aspect ratio.

This makes absolutely no sense at all.

Black bars are not defensible. The advantage given by 32:9 is not more significant in the main non-competitive PvE leagues than any of the dozens of other advantages allowed, such as fast PC hardware, high refresh rate displays, paid stash tabs, and many third party tools designed to give players advantages in game.

Selectively removing 32:9 is nothing but arbitrary within the realm of "what advantages does GGG allow?", and black bars is lazy and indefensible compared to other alternatives if GGG is intent on arbitrarily restricting this one particular hardware advantage.

1 year, 293 days.

Fix it.

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."

"

AdRonZh3Ro wrote:

"

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.

"

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.

"

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.

"

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.

"

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.

"

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.

"

tackle70 wrote:

This makes absolutely no sense at all.

Black bars are not defensible

"

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.