Nights simply too dark. Like walking on the dark side of the moon.

[Cydone 41]

Few times in my life have I ever experienced a night as dark as the darkness in Dayz. Sure in the middle of the Amazon, it gets damn dark, also at the bottom of the sea. But rarely this dark, and hardly every night.

 

Rarely will you be in a night so dark you can't even see your own hand.

 

Love the nights, but its like playing in a jar full of tar.

Edited January 21, 2014 by Cydone

[Hethwill_Khan 233]

Bet we all camped already in the wild, hundreds of miles away from any light source right ?

 

In any given place without full moon light or artificial lighting nearby, yes, get's bloody dark sometimes. So dark i couldn't see a pine tree and smashed the nose into it.   :)

 

But being a game i'd like a bit more...artificiality, as we are only looking at a screen and IRL all our senses work to sense space, shapes, etc.

 

+1

Edited January 21, 2014 by Hethwill_Khan

[Space Milk 195]

Bet we all camped already in the wild, hundreds of miles away from any light source right ?

I have

Realistic or not, even though it is unrealistic, nights should be better.

Gamma and brightness should not be modified.

Monitor only.

******357 POST*****

Edited January 21, 2014 by Space Milk

[King of kong 1117]

I dare you to spend a night in the desolate Irish countryside, near a Fairy-fort. Tell me how you feel then. Hope the fairies don't come and kill you either. Also don't damage white-thorn bushes or you'll die

[infammo 15]

What would be interesting is if staying in the dark for ten minutes made it easier to see outlines, as night-vision in the real world does. Granted, night vision in reality takes about 30 minutes to reach full effect, at which point starlight makes navigation simple.

 

Of course, activating a flashlight or having one shone in your eyes would ruin this effect.

[Trigger Hippy 176]

I think too many people just adjusted their brightness/gamma settings and were running around like it was daylight.

[TEST_SUBJECT_83 465]

Night time is dark.

The darkness is fine just the way it is.

[Furtherado 100]

From a gameplay perspective, yes, you should be able to see better in the dark

 

From a realistic perspective, no, without the moon and with electricity down, you don`t see shit.

[chompster 171]

Without moonlight or any other source of lighting, it really would be that dark. So it is realistic and as it should be.

 

Having said that, i do agree that it isn't fun at all to play in. So for the sake of gameplay i would agree that it should be adjusted a little. If it isn't then people will just use gamma anyway..

[BadAsh (DayZ) 1513]

Few times in my life have I ever experienced a night as dark as the darkness in Dayz. Sure in the middle of the Amazon, it gets damn dark, also at the bottom of the sea. But rarely this dark, and hardly every night.

 

Rarely will you be in a night so dark you can't even see your own hand.

 

Love the nights, but its like playing in a jar full of tar.

 

Yes it does get damn dark at night if you have no cities nearby that light pollutes the sky, and if it is cloudy and/or it is new moon. You don't have to go to the Amazon to experience that. You just have to go to any old countryside. The game is perfectly realistic in that sense.

[BadAsh (DayZ) 1513]

What would be interesting is if staying in the dark for ten minutes made it easier to see outlines, as night-vision in the real world does. Granted, night vision in reality takes about 30 minutes to reach full effect, at which point starlight makes navigation simple.

 

I think the game already does that, only very quickly. If you spawn in a nighttime server and turn on your flashlight you will notice that at first everything is really murky, but in about 30 seconds it gets much brighter as the eyes adjust to the bright light in the dark. I suppose something similar is happening in reverse, the outline of trees and buildings slowly appearing against the sky (if it is clouldess) if you look closely enough when you spawn.

[infammo 15]

Without moonlight or any other source of lighting, it really would be that dark. So it is realistic and as it should be.

 

Having said that, i do agree that it isn't fun at all to play in. So for the sake of gameplay i would agree that it should be adjusted a little. If it isn't then people will just use gamma anyway..

 

Speaking as someone living in the middle of nowhere. In basic starlight it would indeed be this dark the moment you walk out from light. After 30 minutes, however, you can walk through a field and see everything.

 

Through a pine forest you would be able to walk without walking into trees, noticing roots in the undergrowth is possible but becomes very difficult with the forest filtering most of the starlight.

 

Most of all, in starlight on a clear night (pretty much all nights in DayZ, especially for those of us that turn clouds off for minor performance boost.) you are able to detect MOVEMENT, but often not discern what is moving. Cats, rabbits, or any other animal can freak you out.

 

Just imagine what a zombie moving a few meters away from you can do.

[dusty_nuttles 130]

I think too many people just adjusted their brightness/gamma settings and were running around like it was daylight.

 

Exactly. The reason its the way it is, is because gamma/brightness can be adjusted to give an edge during night play. I like the nights dark. They start you off with a flashlight for crying out loud. Not like your not equipped for it.

[Bakercompany86 347]

Current natural night lighting is unrealistic.  Moonlight and starlight provides far more illumination than the sea of black that exists now.

 

 

On a full moon, you can walk out into a field and it's perfectly visible.  Under trees it would certainly be darker.  But you would be able to see much better than you can now.

 

Also the other things meant to make nights better aren't working.  Flashlights function, but the light-clipping makes you light up like a lighthouse beacon.

 

I should also be able to shine my flashlight at my compass for navigation.  The flashlight taking two hands to use does suck a bit actually.  These aren't 30lbs flood lights or something.

[Jack Dant 158]

Current natural night lighting is unrealistic.  Moonlight and starlight provides far more illumination than the sea of black that exists now.

 

 

On a full moon, you can walk out into a field and it's perfectly visible.  Under trees it would certainly be darker.  But you would be able to see much better than you can now.

 

I agree with you on starlight, but the full moon in DayZ is too bright. With the moon out, it's like playing in daytime, but without colors. Even with a full moon, IRL, I find it very hard to focus on details from far away.

[damagefilter 34]

From experience I can say, nights are actually dark like that yes. From that perspective, as stated a bunch of times before, it's realistic.

I get that it's all about the realistic approach of things and hey, after all, that's all the fun in DayZ, is it not?

 

But having to tune up graphics settings to see a thing - that's not cool from a gameplay perspective.

It's just that.

I think no one (well most of the community) wants to have a night time where you can see everything either.

Finding some middle way would be good though. After all, it's still a game.

 

I would suggest slightly less dark shadows and just that tiny little bit more light so you can at least make out that tree you're about to run into.

The times when the moonlight is bright ... yeah I suppose that works for full moon nights without any clouds.

 

On the NVG argument:

All those things do is is amplifying the bit of light that is left at night but as it stands, there's literally no light at all.

There are situations where you wouldn't see a thing if it wasn't for the sky in the background.

In those situations, following the realistic approach, you would see barely anythign but green noise and some very faint outlines through NVGs.

/5 cents

Edited January 21, 2014 by damagefilter

[Bakercompany86 347]

I agree with you on starlight, but the full moon in DayZ is too bright. With the moon out, it's like playing in daytime, but without colors. Even with a full moon, IRL, I find it very hard to focus on details from far away.

 

Strange.  My gamma/brightness are each at 50% and I can't see a damn thing outside.  I mean nothing.  Just blackness.

[Jack Dant 158]

Strange.  My gamma/brightness are each at 50% and I can't see a damn thing outside.  I mean nothing.  Just blackness.

I usually get a solid black monitor on night servers, making it unplayable. But two days ago, the server I was in restarted, and when it came back it was nightime, with a nearly full moon high above me. I could see clearly for miles. So the moon makes a huge difference, it's just not always out.

[musketeer 33]

I would agree that nights are too dark. I've spawned on servers during night time and thought I'd got stuck loading due to the darkness. I personally think the image should go grey and slightly blurry, like in real life.

[irl-calibre 744]

even the dark nights are tweakable to be playable

 

 

it requires as certain amount of integrity of the player and quite frankly you will meet others that don't. but it's still a hell of a lot of fun. the jpeg kinda darkens it, but that is very playable in.

Edited January 21, 2014 by Calibre

[Bakercompany86 347]

even the dark nights are tweakable to be playable

 

 

it requires as certain amount of integrity of the player and quite frankly you will meet others that don't. but it's still a hell of a lot of fun. the jpeg kinda darkens it, but that is very playable in.

 

 

You and I have very different definitions of playable...

[damagefilter 34]

All you can see there are silhouettes against the sky >.>

I mean, yes, that's how it is supposed to look like without any kind of light source but ... I don't think that's playable either.

[irl-calibre 744]

haha.. wanna try playing in that and your torch running out of batteries while being aggroed by zombies.. heart attack!! the jpg doesn't really do justice to what I see in my screen I can play in it no problem and it feels very like night to me tbh..

[infammo 15]

If you take that image as how a starlight-only night looks to the average player with 50% gamma and brightness, (It certainly looks like this for me.) then it is clearly MUCH darker than reality. That sky is so clear that you should be able to see most of the milky way with the naked eye once your eyes adjust.

 

I live in the northern parts of scandinavia, no large town for several miles. A perfect spot for stargazing. In that brightness, you should be able to see the individual planks and the gaps between them on that house after 30 minutes.

 

You would be able to see the bark of the tree, but not the texture as starlight does not cast shadows as you might usually consider. Starlight gives you the ability to identify shapes, grass and movement. It is a light that completely lacks fidelity, however.

 

What should be looked at the most is in fact the sky. In a place like chernarus where there is almost no light pollution due to the whole situation, that sky should be lit up brigther than a planetarium. The milky way is a light-show under those conditions.

[DarkwaveDomina 1099]

It's not realistic? I guess I imagined those night-time rural walks I used to take. Pity, they were nice.  :(