[REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

Astrobe
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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by Astrobe » Post

For the curious ones who were looking for the related PR: https://github.com/minetest/minetest/pull/9315

It's not too late to revert the "not granted by default" bit. I want this feature, I am willing to add basic_debug privs to have it (or whatever, as long as it does not involve the sacrifice of animals on altars). Others don't want it, they'll have nothing to do and therefore they won't curse your kitties.

I also strongly suggest you make it a general policy. Do not alter existing behavior unless someone changes the config to get the new behavior, and your kitties will be safe.

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by Wuzzy » Post

There’s a problem with "not granted by default" tho. Privileges that are granted by default are irrevokable. And this would defeat the whole point of this change.

Maybe granting basic_privs by default again will alleviate the concerns. But then we have to figure out how to get rid of the irrevokable privilege nonsense first.

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by DragonsVolcanoDance » Post

I actually like this idea, it's pretty interesting and worth trying. Like previous people said, it makes the game more immersive. You actually have to remember where you put your house with landmarks and how deep your mine goes.

Survival servers would probably benefit the most from a change line this. It gives server owners the possibility to add things like compasses and other similar equipment to their game.

I don't think it would be much different from the minimap. Survival servers have been adding a mapping kit mod to their servers so that you can't just press f7 and immediately get a minimap.

But yeah, there should definitely be an option to give coordinates privileges to all players on a server if the admin doesn't want to design their game that way.

All in all it seems like this change just gives more server owners options to try for their server experience.

Edited because I can't spell

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by ThorfinnS » Post

Wuzzy wrote:
Tue Nov 30, 2021 01:07
There’s a problem with "not granted by default" tho. Privileges that are granted by default are irrevokable. And this would defeat the whole point of this change.

Maybe granting basic_privs by default again will alleviate the concerns. But then we have to figure out how to get rid of the irrevokable privilege nonsense first.
What is the difference between PRIV_DEBUG and !PRIV_IMMERSIVE and vice versa?

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by sfan5 » Post

I have good news for the critics of this change: After Wuzzy brought up several problems with it, discussion in the team and with consensus of core devs it was reverted just before 5.5 release and will not be included.
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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by runs » Post

sfan5 wrote:
Sun Jan 30, 2022 20:39
I have good news for the critics of this change: After Wuzzy brought up several problems with it, discussion in the team and with consensus of core devs it was reverted just before 5.5 release and will not be included.
Four exalted cats should not be listened to. It was a good idea to use the hidden coordinates; steps back just to get a running start.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by Wuzzy » Post

It's true, the big change I have pushed so hard is now completely gone again. Why?

Let me explain:

I have thought months about this after it was merged, and it was always a splinter in the back in the mind, that something was off, but I never know what to do. Then I spontanously took to the chat to talk this out with core devs, and the decision was a revert.

What was eventually the death blow to this was the realization that my belief that server operators could just easily add the basic_debug priv afterwards was unrealistic. They are notoriously slow to update (no offense!). Also, it would almost certianly have required a MOD just to add the privilege after-the-fact, which is super-ugly. I thought it was as simple as just adding it to default_privs but then I learned this setting only sets the default privs for new players. I did not think of default_privs back then, which is the reason for the complete 180°.

Note my original long-term goal still stands: That in the long run, games should have a more clean, less hacky, less cluttery way to expose coordinates. I still think the debug screen is a really hacky way to do this , since it contains clutter that players don't want (like profiler graphs). Sadly, many servers have become too dependent on this, but my "solution" was too much of a rugpull basically.
In an ideal world, games and especially servers would not have started to depend on the debug screen so much to begin with and a more gameplay-centered HUD would have been used from the start. This is where I want to end up in the long run.
But my solution admittedly runs the risk of having hundreds of players on servers lose their coordinates would have been too risky. And yes, the criticisms did affect my decision as well. Good that I brought that up just in time, I didn't realize a release was imminent. SORRY! :-(
I still think there is some way to reach the original goal, but my PR was not the best solution.

Life lesson learned: Better test out such disruptive changes in the real world (not just under "laboratory conditions") before adding them to the engine. Becaue then I would have seen the problem with default_privs earlier.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by runs » Post

Well, I think it's terrible, what can I tell you...

If it were up to the server owners, version 5.0 would not have been released. Because people are very lazy and find it hard to update anything.

The F5 thing with things that players don't care about (a lot of data that nobody (not even me) understands.

That's why my game/server will break with the past. I don't want ballast.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by runs » Post

Minecraft shows them in JAVA version by default (F3), but not in the BEDROCK version, it is an option, a "cheat" I think.

I mean that Bedrock option is more advanced because it was the last one to appear. The owners of the servers activate it or not to their taste. I have no idea, but I think it is like that.

Minetest should do it that way, it's the modern way.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by runs » Post

Also Morrowind, for example, had no fast travel or coordinates. You didn't know where to go. It was even more immersive than Skyrim. Pro people don't want it all chewed up anymore.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by Festus1965 » Post

before going this way again,
maybe offer a set of solutions or mods that are ready and available when that change occurs.
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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by Wizard Of mkdir » Post

How about instead of disabling the debug info completely, we instead allow it to be switched off with a privilege (e. g. disable_debug) or a setting? (I know this was probably brought up earlier in the thread) This would be the best of both worlds: people who want to make immersive games can simple add it to the basic_privs or whatever, meanwhile it won't break any active servers. This is the best compromise: give people more control over their game.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by rubenwardy » Post

Privileges should only allow behaviour, not remove it. Otherwise grant all will remove features.

HUD flags are a cleaner solution and are just as good at allowing control
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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by Wuzzy » Post

To learn from the past mistake, I strongly advice you to try out any suggestion you have in the real world and also testing the transition to the new system, and also test what happens to servers/games that don't do anything.
That way, any problems your idea has should become obvious very fast.

The reason why I didn't see the problem with my approach was that I didn't actually test it out in the real world; I only wrote down what server operators should do and blindly assumed it would work.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by davidthecreator » Post

runs wrote:
Sun Jan 30, 2022 22:31
Minecraft shows them in JAVA version by default (F3), but not in the BEDROCK version, it is an option, a "cheat" I think.
Bedrock player here.

Coordinate display is a "world option" and does not count as a cheat.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by sorcerykid » Post

I think the cleanest solution for this would be to upgrade the HUD to support variable interpolation, so that server operators can output whatever meaningful "debug" information they want in the format they want, and place that anywhere desired on the screen.

The following variables could be made available:

$pos = position of player; e.g. (0.5,3.0,44.6)
$pos_x = only the x axis coordinate
$pos_y = only the y axis coordinate
$pos_z = only the z axis coordinate
$yaw = player's yaw in degrees; e.g. 53°
$pitch = player's pitch in degrees; e.g. -5.8°
$dir = player's facing direction, e.g. East
$axis = player's viewing axis; e.g. -X
$fps = rendering speed in frames per second
$drawtime = drawtime in milliseconds

Since the variable interpolation would be handled entirely client-side, there would be no lag unlike relying on a mod to emulate this functionality within a globalstep routine.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by Wuzzy » Post

Yes, this is a good idea and would work nicely. Ideally some kind of number formatting should be supported as well, i.e. number of digits, precision, unit, etc.

It's would be a nice replacement but also has its limits, like for games that have like their own unique coordinate system. But it's still a start.
Sending coords server-side always was kind of hacky.

Other variables:
$pointed: itemstring of pointed thing (e.g. default:dirt)
$pointed_description: human-readable description of pointed thing, if available (e.g.: Dirt)
$param2: param2 of pointed node

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by debiankaios » Post

Add something like a posometer like i did it in proxima survial. You can also add a pointingmeter and debugmeter which shows your coords. After that we can deactivate this feature.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by Casimir » Post

It was the right decisions not to include it in that way.

Maybe use a setting "debug_requires_priv" which is false by default. I haven't read the whole discussion, so that might already have been dismissed.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by Mantar » Post

Could we add a new setting like "universal_privs" or "minimum_privs" that will add a priv to a player on login if it's missing? That seems like it would solve the problem with this change, and could be handy in other situations as well.
I do like sorcerykid's idea, though, it's really good.
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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by L-Dog » Post

This is a Step backwards.... i vote that players need to require a priv to see it... You need the priv to see the WireFrame Debug.

i guess many people cried to the devs about this

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by runs » Post

sorcerykid wrote:
Mon Jan 31, 2022 12:43
I think the cleanest solution for this would be to upgrade the HUD to support variable interpolation, so that server operators can output whatever meaningful "debug" information they want in the format they want, and place that anywhere desired on the screen.

The following variables could be made available:

$pos = position of player; e.g. (0.5,3.0,44.6)
$pos_x = only the x axis coordinate
$pos_y = only the y axis coordinate
$pos_z = only the z axis coordinate
$yaw = player's yaw in degrees; e.g. 53°
$pitch = player's pitch in degrees; e.g. -5.8°
$dir = player's facing direction, e.g. East
$axis = player's viewing axis; e.g. -X
$fps = rendering speed in frames per second
$drawtime = drawtime in milliseconds

Since the variable interpolation would be handled entirely client-side, there would be no lag unlike relying on a mod to emulate this functionality within a globalstep routine.
My vote for this. High priority please.

sorcerykid you should make a PR but with the consent of the hard core, that you know that if they don't like something they will knock it down.

The pointedthing is also fundamental for a variable to get that info.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by PolySaken » Post

Good that this was cancelled, however I don't think letting the server control client-side debug info is useful or a good idea. Let the server provide HUDs the normal way if they want to have custom position/heading/whatever and keep the debug screen the way it is. What the hell is the point of letting the server override the FPS readout? The server can't even know the FPS that the client is running at, let alone show anything useful there. Why get rid of a feature that is useful to replace it with one that's just a second type of server-sent HUD with no new utility added?
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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by ROllerozxa » Post

PolySaken wrote:
Wed Feb 02, 2022 07:18
Good that this was cancelled, however I don't think letting the server control client-side debug info is useful or a good idea. Let the server provide HUDs the normal way if they want to have custom position/heading/whatever and keep the debug screen the way it is. What the hell is the point of letting the server override the FPS readout? The server can't even know the FPS that the client is running at, let alone show anything useful there. Why get rid of a feature that is useful to replace it with one that's just a second type of server-sent HUD with no new utility added?
FPS would still have been in the debug info, it was just information that could be used for gameplay that was hidden (coordinates and pointed node I think was everything). It would still show the Minetest build info and performance info even if you don't have the basic_debug priv.

Also it wasn't even anything radical in the slightest, it's just like how there's a debug privilege to be able to use wireframe mode, since it can be abused for X-raying and finding caves.

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Re: [REVERTED!] Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by L-Dog » Post

WTF you guys on about?

Dont give the players any damn debug info.. their PLAYERS!! not DEVS!! or in any need of the debug info... Lord have mercy on you lot.

Less info the player gets the better their gameplay.

since we gonna Keep F5, we should give players X-ray vision debug.. and while we are at it, we might as well give them Server Privs in case they need it.

Look at GTA, Fortnight, Crossout - wheres their 'debug' info?

How about get MineTest to a Triple AAA game standard then ill happily have the Debug screen, but UNTIL THAT DAY its just more useless BS to cover the screen of the player... Privs for Debug or make Server Priv a default priv to keep these damn cry babies happy

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