Night Is Absurdly, Unrealistically Dark

[Eunomiac 0]

As much as I love this game, you've taken the darkness of night way too far. My first game involved a clear sky filled with stars... but I couldn't even make out the silhouette of the pistol in my hand. I spent ten minutes heading towards what I thought was a hill, before I realized it was a cloud. When I finally got to the top of another hill and looked down, it was like I'd turned off my monitor.

This just isn't how light works at night.

Starlight -- particularly the kind of starlight you'd get on a clear night with no moon and no light pollution -- is bright enough to cast shadows. Easily bright enough. And that's discounting even brighter celestial objects, like Jupiter or Venus, not to mention the reflection of stars off of metal (pistols), glass, and water. Absent significant cloud cover, it should never be so dark that one literally cannot see their hand in front of their face. One can make out shapes and moving objects at ten, fifteen feet by nothing more than starlight, once eyes have time to adjust.

I find this to be an extremely odd exception to the incredible realism you've managed to capture with DayZ. Not only that, I can only assume it's hurting the game: Many new players are experiencing DayZ for the first time at night, and it can't be a good idea to greet them with nothing more than stars on the top of their screen and utterly unrealistic blackness on the bottom.

Of course, pitch darkness is awesome, and it should have a place in DayZ or any piece of zombie horror. But it should be realistic darkness, not perpetual blindness. Cloud cover that blots out the stars would do it, while making darkness random & unpredictable, like a storm. Local phenomena like a thick forest canopy, or the roof over a building, would make darkness something to bravely walk into, as opposed to being something all-encompassing and inescapable. Realistic darkness could foster interesting decisions and conflicts, since any source of light on a moonless night would kill one's night vision, turning every flare, fire and headlight into the equivalent of a flash grenade.

I've seen a lot of threads calling for flashlights or making other suggestions to fix the darkness problem, but it's really as simple as just letting the starlight do what it does naturally: very limited vision to a dozen feet or so, quickly fading into pitch blackness beyond that, except where shapes are silhouetted against the sky itself.

[Malleovic 3]

I agree that this would make the game both more atmospheric and authentic (BOOOM!). It would also encourage people to venture out into the night more often while giving them just as little safety as before, which is a good thing (more blundering into zeds/players=fun). Don't know if it can be done with the engine, but I know nothing about the engine so that's really not a surprise.

[Publik 404]

10/10 well said

I'd say "use search" but your post was eloquent, so much so that it deserves its own post.

[RonnieG 0]

I agree with your post but, I just don't think the engine can do that. Maybe with Arma 3 we'll see something like that.

[Publik 404]

I agree with your post but' date=' I just don't think the engine can do that. Maybe with Arma 3 we'll see something like that.

[/quote']

Sure it can. It can change it based on cloud cover and moon cycles, so it ought to be able to do the same thing with a sped up time-frame.

[Gaidoon 19]

Night is way to dark now.