Give a reason to play on night servers?

[97ADU Doug 103]

Alright, first of all let me make one thing clear. I love night. My motive behind making this post is because I love night, let me explain.

How many good high pop servers that are relatively well policed have a 24 hr day/night cycle? A spare few. For me living in Australia, there are next to none for me. The only server Iv been able to find is the Balota Buddies whitelist server (hats off to them). So, why not add a perk that comes into effect when the sun goes down. Maybe the chances of rare loot spawning increases? Anything that will motivate people to play at night. Too long now have people just logged out when the sun goes down. Too many servers have a 24 hr day cycle. Where's the immersion? Wheres the thrill of running through the dark while hoarse moans and roars come from all around you? The horror of lighting up the hoard with a gunshot every so often?

PS: if anyone knows of a 24hr day/night cycle namalsk server please let me know, cheers. (balota buddies namalsk server as good as it is has 24 hr day) I know why the admins put there servers on 24 hr daylight. To keep their servers alive, I can relate to that. I just want people to actually WANT to play at night so the admins don't have to set up their servers in this way.

TL;)DR = Night is fun, people don't like it, lets force them to like it.

Thoughts?

Edited March 30, 2013 by 97ADU Doug

[Xucphra 453]

I've noticed that. I can't find any servers that use full day/night cycles these days. I always loved running around at night. The zombies have no visual aggro, and it's always fun playing with lighting items (flashlights, chemlights, flares, etc).

Sure it's difficult to see, and turning on your flashlight could get you killed, but that's the fun of it.

I don't know what you could do to make nighttime more profitable for people. If there wasn't so much scripted-in night vision floating around, people could take advantage of the dark to move around freely.

Edited March 30, 2013 by Xucphra

[Zionist Wabbit 154]

Aha - Night is much better to day for several reasons:

- On the odd occasion, you will have a full-moon which will give enough light for you to move about without being seen. A good way to move about high-population areas such as the NWAF.

- With the surrounding darkness you can also see Light's from, quite literally, miles away. Anything from a Fireplace someone had forgotten to put out at a Camp to a Helicopter Crash Site. A good 5 minute walk around Stary Sobor and you're bound to see at least three Sites, increasing the chance of finding NVG's or other high-value loot.

- Low population for loot runs is always good. On a Day Server with 50/60 people on you're going to be confronted sooner or later. If you're under-equipped or afraid of loosing your Gear to a group of Snipers it's always best to play at Night.

Edited March 30, 2013 by Zionist Wabbit

[applejaxc 2500]

So, why not add a perk that comes into effect when the sun goes down. Maybe the chances of rare loot spawning increases? Anything that will motivate people to play at night. Too long now have people just logged out when the sun goes down. Too many servers have a 24 hr day cycle. Where's the immersion? Wheres the thrill of running through the dark while hoarse moans and roars come from all around you? The horror of lighting up the hoard with a gunshot every so often?

Players would find/trade/kill for NVGs, then log into night servers and farm loot.

That's how the game is played, anyway; night already has perks for playing:

Zombies can't see you if you aren't basically right in front of them.

Non-NVG players can't see you.

"Noobs" throw flares and are super easy to find/kill, if you're a bandit a*shole.

Low-population; the N/SWAFs, Elektro, and Chernogorsk will be almost empty. The only snipers after you will have DMRs, so if you're a bandit-hunter like me, you know to expect good loot from bandit kills.

Fire-fights are easy, if you have an SD weapon; enemies will light up like firecrackers at night.

Vehicles are easy to spot, even with their lights off.

[Xucphra 453]

- Low population for loot runs is always good. On a Day Server with 50/60 people on you're going to be confronted sooner or later. If you're under-equipped or afraid of loosing your Gear to a group of Snipers it's always best to play at Night.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to find 50-60 people who will stay on a server once it gets dark. Most people pack up and leave. You'd be lucky to get 20-30.

[Charb 298]

Night not only looks cool, but if gives you a sense of false-security sometimes instead of instilling the sense of fear it should.

Group of 4 total (including me) went to stary, threw a few flares, all dead within about 30 seconds by the only other guy on the server. Really wish I had a Video of that, I recall every second of course...

Madness !!!

[97ADU Doug 103]

Unfortunately, it's difficult to find 50-60 people who will stay on a server once it gets dark. Most people pack up and leave. You'd be lucky to get 20-30.

This

[facoptere 180]

Admins want theirs servers well ranked. Players flee when the darkness comes. Put 24h daylight and the problem is solved.

I found a balanced solution : set the date at a summer day with full moon. daylight from 3:30 am to 7:30pm, full moon from 7:30pm to 2:30am (and full darkness during 1 hour, arma2 bug I presume).

Edited March 30, 2013 by facoptere

[_Anubis_ (DayZ) 139]

Full moon nights are acceptable and provide a very nice atmosphere and balance.

I wouldn't play during dark nights against players NVG equipped because there are better ways to commit suicide. And nobody uses flares/flashlight alone, unless he's a fresh spawn..

_Anubis_

[Inception. 9443]

And nobody uses flares/flashlight alone, unless he's a fresh spawn..

Incorrect. Flares are great for ruining Night Vision. I use them all of the time when in towns/cities/in close proximity to those who use NVGs.

[97ADU Doug 103]

Admins want theirs servers well ranked. Players flee when the darkness comes. Put 24h daylight and the problem is solved.

I found a balanced solution : set the date at a summer day with full moon. daylight from 3:30 am to 7:30pm, full moon from 7:30pm to 2:30am (and full darkness during 1 hour, arma2 bug I presume).

I know why admins set 24 hr day, my suggestion is that we give them a good reason not to "flee".

[facoptere 180]

Reasons I see:

1/ it's ugly and boring. Arma2 draws no so beautiful graphics per se. Add the color fading when your blood is missing. Add the contrast and light fading on darkness... where is the fun?

2/ more vulnerable to killers (geared up with NVG for example, or NV scope)

3/ no stake, and even drawbacks. Zombies do not change their behavior during night (someone can confirm that?). Loots are the same. Only character temperature is computed from the time of day, and you need more heatpacks.

Suggestions to balance that:

1/ As stated before, add the full moon. I added some mist on Chernarus during sunset and dawn too. Make the atmosphere unique.

2/ maybe add some aggressive zombies around players with NV gear.

3/ maybe change the loot chances according to time of day. Make heli-crashes visible from several kilometers. Or more heli-crashes during night.

4/ add some street lights around enterable buildings / lit all such buildings (easier to spot from far).

5/ faster humanity increase / decrease during night (good behavior more rewarded)

[BwobBwub 660]

Night is very fun. Also as not many play on night servers, its a perfect time to go looting.

[liquidcactus 719]

I always loved playing at night in dayz (until i found out about the exploit of brightness setting).. I always felt sorry for the bums who hated it considering how much i loved it.. you see I've been playing games/FPS for 20 + years now.. This has made me grow to love very difficult situations in fps games in the latter years..to keep things interesting (think of it as keeping the fire in the relationship between me and FPS )

ANYWAY, running around in complete pitch black being to scared to use my flashlight reminded me of playing amnesia..Without a weapon at night especially, dayz turns into a real survival horror situation, avoiding every sound you hear. It's almost as if night time is a whole in chapter of dayz once the sun goes down.. its 50 % of the game for me !

[Xucphra 453]

Incorrect. Flares are great for ruining Night Vision. I use them all of the time when in towns/cities/in close proximity to those who use NVGs.

Or you could chuck one far away to draw people's attention away from you. There's plenty of possibilities.

[Inception. 9443]

Or you could chuck one far away to draw people's attention away from you. There's plenty of possibilities.

Yeah, that too.

[DayZoey 110]

See so many people use flares and flashlights. Flares give you off for miles away and flashlights have the same problem except your vision is confined to a narrow tube of vision and you're forced to move at a walking pace to even use that narrow tube. You may as well not have it or just use road flares. The problem with road flares is they burn out in 15 minutes.

Solution you say?

I say Chemlights. Red is the worst if you want to see but the best for being sneaky since someone has to be within 20m or so to see the light. Green is the worst if you want to be sneaky but still someone has to be within roughly 50-100m to see the light. Blue of course is the middle ground, equal light and equal stealthiness. None of the three attract zombies and if some schmuck happens to get the drop on you, you drop the light and run in some random direction and hit the deck. Unless he has NVG the chances of them finding you are slim to absolute f**k all.

I actually tested chemlights, setting a marker and then dropping each colour on that marker and running away until I couldn't see it anymore. The numbers aren't perfect obviously (drawn from a really crappy memory) but they're approximately accurate. Chemlights are invaluable tools to have at night and they last for 1 hour. One stack of chemlights can get you through most of an entire night cycle which is usually 12 hours, maybe 4 of which is spent in ink-screen-rendering blackness anyways. Not to mention they're practically invisible to night vision goggles so NVG bandits running around won't see you for miles off. Heck they could walk right by you and probably not notice it if they weren't paying attention.

Besides, what better way to headf**k bandits in lowlight conditions then to scatter a bunch of chemlights around Cherno or Elektro before you leave? They last an hour, so you will basically waste some schmuck's time for anywhere up to an hour that he spends running around looking for you because there's chemlights around even though you left X amount of minutes ago.

Still though, you want to make night time a good time to play the game? Why don't we eliminate night time being absolutely f**king retarded pitch black? I know it's a fault with the Arma 2 engine, that doesn't stop it from being any less annoying to being able to make out basic shapes and to be walking around in the middle of town and BAM suddenly pitch black. Pitch black should be waaaaaaay more gradual, like a cloud passing over the moon. It should also only ever happen during rain storms when the moon is obscured by clouds until the end of the storm.

I'm not a country girl but I've been out in the country at night when the moon is out and it is a lot brighter than you might think it would be. It was almost comparable to being in a city street with the street lights all on except -everything- was brightly lit. That was also a full moon though, something else the Arma 2 engine hasn't really accounted for. So another suggestion for the SA is to add actual lunar cycles to servers. Heck it doesn't even have to be anything really complex, maybe just like... if a server had a full moon one night, it would have a 3/4 the next, then a 1/2 after that, then a 1/4 after that, then a 1/2 again, then a 3/4 again, so on and so forth.

Even in pitch blackness though we as human beings would still be able to make out basic shapes, the light -does- exist, it's just very dim. The only time we should -ever- see pitch black is when we're in a room with no windows and the door is shut. We wouldn't have survived as many centuries as we did before the discovery of fire if we were incapable of operating and defending ourselves at night. People will say that me turning up my brightness/contrast in game is cheating at night, I call it adjusting my eyes to the light conditions because the game sure as crap isn't capable of doing that on its own.

[godtoldme2killu 2]

Playing DayZ in the night time gives you the element of surprise. Some servers (these private servers will soon disappear) begin the character's with NVG and/or flashlights. Night time increases the difficulty and should be used as an advantage against other players. Now to hide my campfire from bandit helicopter raid parties...

[Death_Dealer 3155]

I've completely avoided night time in DayZ (if I don't have NVG) mainly due to the fact that night in ArmA 2 is completely unrealistic. It's pretty much pitch black, even when the moon is out.

Hopefully this will be fixed properly in the standalone. DayZ + night = a terrifying experience; I love terrifying experiences. :)

[Xucphra 453]

I've completely avoided night time in DayZ (if I don't have NVG) mainly due to the fact that night in ArmA 2 is completely unrealistic. It's pretty much pitch black, even when the moon is out.

Hopefully this will be fixed properly in the standalone. DayZ + night = a terrifying experience; I love terrifying experiences. :)

Have you ever been in the middle of nowhere a night? No major cities or anything in the area? It gets dark. Really dark.

[BearGravy 53]

I agree, most people usually do log off by night, so whats the point. They do need an incentive to keep people out and about at night. Something balanced for people with NVG's and people without NVG's alike. Maybe make NVG's use a battery, but make the battery last for around 10 minutes, as if a fat kid is at a chocolate store. Because right now especially at night they are to OP. Flares and chemlights go out after a while, but not NVG's. First the NVG's should be focused on, then focus on the night incentive thing afterwards imo.

[dekartz 315]

There's already been talk about having NVG's have batteries. And since they'll apparently be damageable people are going to be less inclined to wear them into a gun-fight.

[GOD™ 2795]

Gives you the ability to play marco polo with your friends.

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

Slumber parties

[Xianyu 820]

Have you ever been in the middle of nowhere a night? No major cities or anything in the area? It gets dark. Really dark.

I live in the middle of nowhere.

On a moonless night, sure, I couldn't pick out a person if he was standing in the shadows, completely still.

In the SHADOWS.

Because even stars cast light. The only time it gets too dark to see ANYTHING is when there's cloud cover. If the moon is out at all I can pick out objects in my path down to the size of a coke can.

I think you'll find that in the middle of nowhere with no lights is when your eyes work best.

When you just finished being blinded by your car headlights, street lights, etc etc etc it takes twenty minutes for the chemicals in your eyes to reach a stage that permits really good night-time perception.