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

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

by Wuzzy » Post

This change was reverted and will not be in 5.5 in this form.


SUMMARY:
  • Debug coordinates and other gameplay-relevanted info (like pointed) in the debug screen will be hidden for unprivileged players
  • To get the full debug screen back, players will need the "basic_debug" privilege
  • Game makers who want to expose coordinates should do so via a mod / HUD elements and not rely on the debug screen
FULL POST:

There will be an important change in the next minor version of Minetest (after 5.4.0): Debug coordinates will no longer be "free". This means, unprivileged (!) players will no longer get to see their coordinates in the debug screen. In fact, ALL gameplay-relevant info will be hidden.

Currently, in 5.4.0, everyone can see their coordinates for "free" by pressing the debug key (F5). This is a problem for game designers since it is impossible to disable this or want to do a different method for players to reveal the coordinates. The only way to work around this is to tell players "Never press F5" or "F5 is a cheat", but this really sucks.

With the change, an unprivileged player will no longer see the coordinates and some other gameplay-relevant info in the debug screen. The basic debug screen will only contain basic debug info like FPS, draw time, RTT.

Don't worry, the full debug screen is still there. To get it (and the coordinates) back, players need to have the "basic_debug" privilege. In singleplayer, you'll get it with a "/grantme basic_debug" in chat. This might be considered a cheat in some games.

The reason for this change is that free coordinates in the debug screen give a gameplay advantage for every player that games can't get rid of. For some more complicated games, the debug coordinates can even be outright misleading. The second reason is that the debug screen is supposed to be only for debugging. Gameplay info and debug info should be fully separated. That's what the basic_debug privilege does: If you don't have it, all gameplay-relevant info is hidden in the debug screen.

For games makers that make games in which coordinates/position are important, I recommend to add HUD elements that expose the coordinates manually and maybe an item/tool/button to turn this HUD on and off. Do NOT rely on the debug screen to do that for you, as the debug screen was never meant to be abused this way in the first place. Also, the debug screen is subject to changes anyway.
Last edited by Wuzzy on Sun Jan 30, 2022 21:09, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be "free" after 5.4.0

by Festus1965 » Post

mhh, that I will really miss ...
* so hope server will grant me ...
* postool is there
* or area: a fast '/area_pos1' will do it a bit also
but my 'hope' or 'faith' to be able to run 5.4.1 or above on my own is low ... we will see
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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be "free" after 5.4.0

by Linuxdirk » Post

CSM goes brrrt.

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be "free" after 5.4.0

by DrFrankenstone » Post

This is great. I admit I'll have a CSM going brrrr in some cases, but have definitely noticed how powerful it is for engagement/immersion with game worlds when I'm paying attention to surrounding landscape and navigating by look and landmarks etc. instead of being able to read off coords.

I also had someone wondering about two different versions of the same node - where the game had needed to make a distinction but it was supposed to be the same node as far as the player was concerned. Now I can ignore that derailment issue.

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be "free" after 5.4.0

by twoelk » Post

So the inspection tool gets more important as do navigation gadgets

hm, not really happy ...
but that extra knowledge could be considered cheating - I guess
at least in some setups

I would rather have that info granted by default and easily revoked by server setup if needed.
So of to counting nodes again when trying to align tunnels.
nope, not really thrilled

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be "free" after 5.4.0

by davidthecreator » Post

Image

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be "free" after 5.4.0

by Blockhead » Post

I expect a lot of servers to add basic_debug to their basic privs now to keep the same behaviour everyone has had for ages. I also expect cheat clients to add seeing the debug menu to their feature lists. Similar thing happened when the minimap and zoom were moved to needing privs/items in minetest_game.

Seeing this type of client-must-obey-server behaviour does give me 'my computer isn't doing exactly what I asked' vibes, but making a complicit default client is at least something of a barrier to cheating, so I understand why it's being done. Anyway it's mostly a concern in PvP environments rather than co-op ones.
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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be "free" after 5.4.0

by ywwv » Post

I dont like this change. you are taking away features and putting them behind micro transactions . its morally incorrect

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be "free" after 5.4.0

by ywwv » Post

I dont think that server owners should come up with ideas anymore. they have too many incentives.

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be "free" after 5.4.0

by philipbenr » Post

ywwv wrote:
Sat Aug 21, 2021 02:52
I dont like this change. you are taking away features and putting them behind micro transactions . its morally incorrect
Did you even read the thread lol? Or do you not know what the word microtransactions means?

To clarify, there are no microtransactions whatsoever. The debug/coordinate information has just been moved to a different level of privileges that has to be granted by server owner.

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be "free" after 5.4.0

by ywwv » Post

philipbenr wrote:
Sat Aug 21, 2021 06:53
ywwv wrote:
Sat Aug 21, 2021 02:52
I dont like this change. you are taking away features and putting them behind micro transactions . its morally incorrect
Did you even read the thread lol? Or do you not know what the word microtransactions means?

To clarify, there are no microtransactions whatsoever. The debug/coordinate information has just been moved to a different level of privileges that has to be granted by server owner.
this is the first step. first they take it away from you. then later it gets sold back. because its a "new" (old ) feature. and nobody on top gets blamed . becuase its just individual server owners doing it. but I know they are being . bribed . there is big money in this

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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be "free" after 5.4.0

by davidthecreator » Post

ywwv wrote:
Sat Aug 21, 2021 07:37
philipbenr wrote:
Sat Aug 21, 2021 06:53
ywwv wrote:
Sat Aug 21, 2021 02:52
I dont like this change. you are taking away features and putting them behind micro transactions . its morally incorrect
Did you even read the thread lol? Or do you not know what the word microtransactions means?

To clarify, there are no microtransactions whatsoever. The debug/coordinate information has just been moved to a different level of privileges that has to be granted by server owner.
this is the first step. first they take it away from you. then later it gets sold back. because its a "new" (old ) feature. and nobody on top gets blamed . becuase its just individual server owners doing it. but I know they are being . bribed . there is big money in this
By that logic, with how easy minetest is to mod...

Half of the server owners would have added special weapons, tools and armor you could buy for real money by now, if people here wanted to profit...

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

by Wuzzy » Post

dont like this change. you are taking away features and putting them behind micro transactions . its morally incorrect
First of all, I prefer the word "in-app purchase" since it is more accurate; so-called "microtransactions" can actually not be "micro" at all. Prices of hundreds of dollars for a single transaction are not unheard of. That's not "micro" at all.

Now for your accusation: This is an unproven conspiracy hypothesis which is also completely false. I am the person who initiated, coded and submitted this change, I am the one behind all this. But I don't intend to do add in-app purchases, "micro"transactions or similar, or any other exploitative garbage into Minetest ever. As I am only a contributor, not a full core dev, I do not have the power to do so anyway.

Also, Minetest is free software. That means, even if all developers conspired to add in-app purchases, this will be a wildly unpopular decision in the community that would almost certainly provoke a hard fork, which I would support.

Also, note how all (or almost all?) games that have included in-app purchases are proprietary, not FOSS. Which makes sense, because it they would be free software, it would be very easy for coders to remove the paywall and release a non-microtransaction version, even legally! But that's not what greedy exploiters want. For this to work in practice, you have to go proprietary, otherwise it will be way too easy to circumvent. I think both proprietary software and in-app purchases are evil.

Anyway, the claim that the intention of this change is to do capitalist exploitation is completely wrong. The REAL intention behind this change is still written in the 1st post of this thread, which you should re-read. ;-)

I don't even run any servers. In fact, I have a deep hatred for in-app purchases myselves and reject them completely since they are often abusive and manipulative. If I would notice any credible push for such thing in Minetest, I would be up in arms, since that would no longer be the Minetest I contributed to.

However, I want to be honest here: What IS possible, is that some server operators, something over which I and the core devs have no direct say (it is their servers, after all), could decide to demand money to gain certain privileges. But this was theoretically possible long BEFORE my PR and they still have to figure out the whole payment thing on their own. Minetest does NOT give server operators ANY support for payment processing, financial transactions or any of that. They would have to somehow build their own system from scratch. My PR about the basic_debug priv changes NOTHING aoubt this theoretical possibility tho. It is not Minetest's fault when server operators start to want money, this is beyond out control. That would be like blaming your webbrowser for letting you visit websites that require payment to access.

That having said, I am not yet aware of any pay-to-play or even pay-to-win server in Minetest yet. But if in future, if this seems to become a problem, I might even advocate to ban abusive servers from the master server list, especially when it's obviously abusive like pay-to-win.*
I think Minetest should not give free advertisement (which the master server is) to servers designed to exploit their players.

* = Note: To be perfectly clear: I'd consider a server which wants to make you pay for the "privilege" to see debug cordinates to be pay-to-win and thus evil.

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

by bzt » Post

Wuzzy wrote:
Thu Aug 19, 2021 07:47
Game makers who want to expose coordinates should do so via a mod / HUD elements and not rely on the debug screen
So am I assuming correctly that this new privilege only influences the debug output and not the get position Lua API, so for example poshud will keep working without any modifications? There's no need to add privs to the mod to get the position, right? I believe so, just want to confirm that my understanding is correct.

Cheers,
bzt

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

by Wuzzy » Post

You are correct, bzt. This is 100% intentional btw. The main point of this is to completely separate the debug screen from gameplay, since the debug screen was never meant to be "abused" for gameplay in the first place. It's a debug screen, that means, it is meant mainly for debugging, not playing.

The lazy way to deal with this change for server owners of servers in which coordinates matter is to just grant "basic_debug" to all players. This will work, but it's not the recommended method, since the debug screen is always possibly subject to change. The recommended way is to use a mod to expose coordinates or any other info you want to expose. That way, you also have full control about where the coordinates (and possibly other info) are seen, how it is formatted, etc.

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

by runs » Post

I think is a good idea.

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

by twoelk » Post

maybe the exposed coordinate info should be included in creative by default

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

by pampogokiraly » Post

twoelk wrote:
Mon Aug 30, 2021 10:11
maybe the exposed coordinate info should be included in creative by default
that is just like how fly, fast, noclip, etc... should be also granted in creative by default. You can kind of do this right now in the settings but it will grant all of these in survival mode too sadly (unless there has been a change which I don't know about)
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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by PolySaken » Post

This was a horrible idea, the motivations for it are ridiculous and the fact that something this braindead could be merged paints a rather depressing picture of what the core devs consider good ideas.

Requiring a server-side privilege to view information that the client already has (and requires to function) is so unbelievably unhinged that I'm starting to understand people who stay on 0.4x. I'll certainly be making a private fork so I can avoid such similarly deranged antics in the future.
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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by PolySaken » Post

Might I add: clients should be receiving more control over how they display things, not less. What data the server chooses to send is up to the server, but the server should have no say over how the client uses that data whatsoever.
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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by Wuzzy » Post

It's the debug screen, it's a special case. It was never meant for gameplay in the first place, so it's OK to treat is specially.
For the same reason, we don't just hand over free wireframe (=XRAY) to everyone yet nobody complained about that. The debug screen also exposes the itemstring of the pointed node and also the HP of the pointed object. Of course, hiding all that is not an anti-cheat, but I also don't think this info should be handed over on a silver platter.

The main reason why the debug screen is popular to players because it contains free coordinates, and there in most games, this is the ONLY way to get coordinates, there is nothing in the game itself that does this.
But I do not consider the debug screen to be part of the game design, it never should be. The debug screen is simply just plastered all over the main game screen. If you try to make a game HUD that does not conflict with the debug screen, you lose. You shouldn't do that. You can simply can not and should not rely on the debug screen for game design.
It is the job of the game to design a proper HUD for coordinates (if they want that).
I also think the debug screen is just really ugly from an UX perspective. For the purpose of exposing your coordinates, it sure adds a lot of clutter as well. The debug screen is simply not good HUD design for a game. That's why I think games should do it on their own.

Your argument also simply does not make sense. There are a LOT of other HUD-related things that the game/server already controls for years. Server controls crosshair, hotbar, wieldhand, minimap, additional HUD text, just to name a few … It makes sense that the server has SOME control because without that, you cannot build a HUD. If you say the server should have NO control whatsoever, that means clients can only have the default HUD and the client has to somehow figure everything out on its own. That doesn't make a lot of sense.
Might I add: clients should be receiving more control over how they display things, not less. What data the server chooses to send is up to the server, but the server should have no say over how the client uses that data whatsoever.
I have nothing against giving clients SOME control over the HUD, but we don't really have the framework for that yet. It would be a lot of work first to have such a system running and would also require a major redesign first. I'm not saying it is impossible, just a lot of work. We are FAR away from that. We have CSMs, but I'm afraid they're not really enough for the task yet. It's also not on the current roadmap anyway.
My opinion is that while players being able to modify their own HUD sounds great, let's also not forget that even then you have to provide a sane default HUD. If many players are telling you they want to modify the HUD that's a sign that the default HUD just sucks. As a game designer, it is part of your job to figure out good HUD design.
I'll certainly be making a private fork so I can avoid such similarly deranged antics in the future.
I have no plans of further going down that road, it was only about the debug screen, not anything else.
Requiring a server-side privilege to view information that the client already has (and requires to function) is so unbelievably unhinged that I'm starting to understand people who stay on 0.4x.
The main reason why people stay on 0.4 is compability, old servers, old worlds, old mods.

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

by PolySaken » Post

Wuzzy wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 09:55
It's the debug screen, it's a special case. It was never meant for gameplay in the first place, so it's OK to treat is specially.
For the same reason, we don't just hand over free wireframe (=XRAY) to everyone yet nobody complained about that. The debug screen also exposes the itemstring of the pointed node and also the HP of the pointed object. Of course, hiding all that is not an anti-cheat, but I also don't think this info should be handed over on a silver platter.
I find minetest to be unplayable without the debug screen, given how many popular mods need itemstrings, specific coordinates, specific placement directions, etc. How many servers are going to add a GUI mod to fix that? Probably none, because it's too much effort when they could just grant the privilege (which completely erases the point of the change in the first place).
Wuzzy wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 09:55
It is the job of the game to design a proper HUD for coordinates (if they want that).
I also think the debug screen is just really ugly from an UX perspective. For the purpose of exposing your coordinates, it sure adds a lot of clutter as well. The debug screen is simply not good HUD design for a game. That's why I think games should do it on their own.
The debug screen is not part of the game, it's a separate tool. It's simple and reliable; anything else would be clutter in my opinion.

Wuzzy wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 09:55
Your argument also simply does not make sense. There are a LOT of other HUD-related things that the game/server already controls for years. Server controls crosshair, hotbar, wieldhand, minimap, additional HUD text, just to name a few … It makes sense that the server has SOME control because without that, you cannot build a HUD. If you say the server should have NO control whatsoever, that means clients can only have the default HUD and the client has to somehow figure everything out on its own. That doesn't make a lot of sense.
The server should be able to provide a HUD of course, but the ultimate decision to use it should be up to the client. Building a hard limit into the client that cannot be changed without building from source is the antithesis of how I (and likely many others, but I can't speak for them) conceive of minetest as a game with freedom as a priority. I already use a modified client as I heavily disagree with the decision to prevent players from accessing the built in minimap and zoom views (especially as the execution of this specific to MTG is visually lacking).

Wuzzy wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 09:55
I have nothing against giving clients SOME control over the HUD, but we don't really have the framework for that yet. It would be a lot of work first to have such a system running and would also require a major redesign first. I'm not saying it is impossible, just a lot of work. We are FAR away from that. We have CSMs, but I'm afraid they're not really enough for the task yet. It's also not on the current roadmap anyway.
My opinion is that while players being able to modify their own HUD sounds great, let's also not forget that even then you have to provide a sane default HUD. If many players are telling you they want to modify the HUD that's a sign that the default HUD just sucks. As a game designer, it is part of your job to figure out good HUD design.
No HUD design is going to please everyone. I personally use a CSM to apply a 'minimal' HUD which only shows the current item instead of the whole hotbar, and moves the statbars down next to it, but this doesn't mean I necessarily dislike the default HUDs provided by many games.

The server should be allowed to provide a HUD, but not mandate its use.
Wuzzy wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 09:55
I have no plans of further going down that road, it was only about the debug screen, not anything else.
That' reassuring specifically for HUD-related topics at least, however it certainly doesn't guarantee that more poor changes won't happen.
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Re: Debug coordinates will no longer be visible for unprivileged players after 5.4.0

by runs » Post

...
Last edited by runs on Thu Sep 16, 2021 22:47, edited 1 time in total.

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

by runs » Post

PolySaken wrote:
Thu Sep 16, 2021 21:30
It's the debug screen, it's a special case. It was never meant for gameplay in the first place, so it's OK to treat is specially.
For the same reason, we don't just hand over free wireframe (=XRAY) to everyone yet nobody complained about that. The debug screen also exposes the itemstring of the pointed node and also the HP of the pointed object. Of course, hiding all that is not an anti-cheat, but I also don't think this info should be handed over on a silver platter.
Juanchiz added the coordinates at hud.

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

by Sokomine » Post

twoelk wrote: So of to counting nodes again when trying to align tunnels.
nope, not really thrilled
Same here. In the end - if the server doesn't provide the priv - the server is not worthy playing on. There may be exceptions, but those are rare. The priv ought to be inverse. The way it's now, server owners have the work to repair something that has been intentionally broken. That's bad design.
Wuzzy wrote: This is 100% intentional btw. The main point of this is to completely separate the debug screen from gameplay,
Hm, might be relevant for those players that just want to play. For me, it's just a question of time until some sort of debugging - or rather: further development - wants to be done. MT is a sandbox on two levels. It's *not* just playing - it's also beeing able to extend the game.
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