Changes to lighting mechanics in 1.7.1.5

[Sayl 13]

First off, I would like to say this is my first post and I do so with genuine appreciation for what you have done here. Me and a few of my friends bought Arma II to experience your mod, learned its unique way of gaming and are enjoying every second of it we put in 200 hours a week on this game according to steam. Thank you for putting your time and effort into this and i wont waste any more of your time with exposition.

It is really prevalent that with the sheer amount of good servers now entering the DayZ family in these last few weeks that you can be pretty picky with your settings, so much so that when night time comes around you will see server activity drop as people just leave for another server that is in the daytime, I think people could view night time as an opportunity if a few things are changed.

* Flashlight beam length, or reflectiveness increased

This is not a huge one, generally the flashlights do what they need to do but because of lack of reflection it seems very binary that they give perfect vision in a small circle but absolutely no vision in the periphery. By making flashlights light beam wider you can give further incentive to people playing at night. This is most apparent when you are pointing down trying to look for loot as the model holds flashlights very far away from itself and is almost useless at looking down. This might take more development than its worth and is a very minor grievance.

* Night Vision Goggles need to be removed

As a nub, i always dreamed of getting a pair of the elusive rare epic item of the dayZ universe. Now with tons of hours under my belt I feel that given the fact that players can gain them by restarting servers, or playing in empty servers only, or worse cheat and get them nefariously nothing this game changingly powerful should exist. Night vision goggles compared to the tools that non users have is like night and day, nearly literally. Adding things like battery life would do very little to mitigate this circumstance. Without night vision goggles players might more confidently enter cities with flashlights/flares/chemlights as for now, one player with Night Vision Goggles is faster (doesnt have to deal with the problems of other light sources) can see much better than any other available tool and also benefits from the zombies not being able to see in the dark, Why would anyone with night vision not just stay in night time servers the whole time and reap the benefits? Night vision players at night are basically predator now with the gamma settings, and I couldn't be more happy with the new gamma settings in creating atmosphere.

* Residential or Industrial Flashlight weapon should exist

Loot tables are everything in DayZ, you enter military places for weapons you enter residential for food and industrial for parts and tools. Right now the flashlight weapons are the Glock 17, Remington 870, and an iteration of the m4. These are all Military and while that is good, going to a military base as a fresh player without a backpack, starter weapons and tools is not something smart players will do lightly. Perhaps a heavy maglight melee weapon that hybrids flashlight with melee, or a stungun flashlight that security personnel carry. Anything really that would drop in residential or industrial loot tables that gives players incentive not to just take their fresh spawn to the day server.

Night play is to me the most suspenseful time in DayZ and the changes made in the last patch have done wonders for night play (less sniper rifles so less people shooting at a flare zone, starter kits with flashlights, no gamma settings) No DayZ experience was more fun than being the flashlight man for a 4 man squad who had to light up the doorways as the zombies poured into Cherno, night time promotes squad play, provides more safety from players (as long as they dont have night vision) and with the gamma settings fixed, players see no benefit to staying in night servers, I think just a little more love needs to be shown to the night operations and players would not see it as a burden of having to move so slow, but as an opportunity to loot more safely if the right tools are brought and applied smartly

Thank you for making this game, and for reading this post!