I have been using 6DoF and 2DoF (default) since mid-december. Here is my feedback on what I felt was positive and negative about them:
Positive
- Can look over the shoulders rearward (a most desired realistic feature) instead of having to use the work-around of turning the whole plane to see into a blind-spot that should not be there to begin with.
- Can see to the side of gunsights.
- Can see over the edge of the cockpit a little bit giving some downward vision to the sides, saving the need to roll the airplane.
- Can see instruments behind the control column without moving the column itself.
- Can lean a bit and towards any instrument and be able to actually read every single instrument that the aircraft is equipped with without resorting to SPEEDBAR and other HUD stuff.
- Can lean a bit to the right to align eyes with gunsights
- And when looking through these (centered or offset) gunsights, can lean forward to see through them. The combination of this and the one above is an amazing feeling!
- Can tilt the head to the left and right when banking the plane, to align eyesight with horizon more (AMAZING feeling of being airborne for real! Looking down a little to see the ocean and the aircraft wing pointing toward it, waaah I am in an airplaaane that is turning close to the water!)
- When climbing, or diving, can tilt the head (again) when looking to the sides over the wings, to align head with horizon more. Gives, like when banking, an amazing immersive feeling of actually climbing in a plane and a much better understanding of how steep a climb/dive is.
- Can move head to see past the blind spots behind canopy frame/bars instead of MOVING THE WHOLE PLANE. Mega immersive feeling.
- Can to some extent look a little bit over the nose, which makes landing and taxiing more immersive and less blind.
- Noticing all kinds of cool details in cockpits and out through the canopy on the wings, tail etc that that were never visible before because the view was locked (Ju-88 and its curtains on the canopy for example).
- The size of own aircraft and cockpit becomes more noticable. I never realized how beefy the IL-2 really was until 6DoF. Pretty cushy big cockpit, big solid wings, etc. Bombers even more so.
- The cockpit, the feeling of being there, it comes 'alive' and feels like something I could reach out and touch. The feeling is so totally different (better). In my whole gaming career (started in 1985) this is the biggest, coolest development for immersion in games since 1997 with 3DFX VooDoo graphics cards that showed 640x480 in high framerate, bilinear texturing filter, mip maps - it was so "Woooooow!!!!!". I have gone on 'joy ride' flights with no enemies, just flying around over terrain in various airplanes, doing acrobatics or other fun things - close to ground, flying low along rivers, under bridges (I consider myself very talented - can come in at crazy angles and speeds and still make it all the time. Can even fly inverted under low bridges) smiling constantly and looking around, feeling free and like I really am in an airplane (yes, no G-forces.. but so much of the rest is there. It's pretty close). I never did that before 6DoF because 2DoF never gave any feeling/immersion like this.
Negative
- A few aircraft have missing panels when moving the head far in certain directions. It felt like any of the other many minor cosmetic oddities that IL-2 has (like extremely polygonal pilots, awful blurry textures in places and so on - it does not stand out as anything special).
- Some aircraft have unrealistic and awkward head center position making it almost impossible to look through the gunsight without some head tracking re-centering tricks (i.e. move head far in opposite direction, click 're-calibrate center' button, then move head back to normal, and the gunsight can be reached). Me-262 and the Horten 229 are examples of this. This problem, although only existant in a few aircraft, is noticable and the centering position of those aircraft should be re-positioned to a realistic head position.
For 2DoF, invert the list above except head alignment issue above (because that problem also exists with 2DoF). That means that 2DoF mode has one thing positive - a couple of graphical blemishes are not possible to be seen. While the negative list is very long and severe.
From time to time I have flown a bit in 2DoF and it is so handicapped/restricted/unimmersive, I just cannot stand it. I stopped ever doing that again and I never will. The view is all.. static. It's like I can't move, I'm stuck, the neck and head are tightly welded to the headrest and no amount of straining can break free of these chains. Only the eyes can move.. a little. It almost makes me motion sick
It plain sucks. 6DoF makes it into a whole different game as far as the experience goes. It is a super huge improvement in every area. The graphical glitches are small things compared to how many other really unrealistic problems are solved. Enormous gain with minimal trade-off.
If for example, something was done to make 6DoF not available through any means anymore, I would absolutely just give up on IL-2 all together, because 2DoF is THAT bad compared to how amazing 6DoF is. Once getting to taste it, there is no going back (same as with my good headphones compared to all the ones I had before. Bigger monitor vs small, fast computer vs slow, bluray vs DVD).