Night time as a PvE element.

[brazorf 46]

I started to play dayz very close to the moment they disabled night, so i was very excited with this patch and accelerated time, and having night back.

So i logged in yesterday and my first impression was amazing, because it adds so much to realism, immersion, thrill and whatever. Above all, it adds in a new PvE challenge - make it through the night - where pve is quite poor at the moment. So, my overall feeling, is really good.

 

Everybody knows anyway that improvements are needed to the lighting but that's not all imo. Here's a short list of things i would like to see.

 

1. Watches. Add in watches we could rely to when planning the next move

 

2. Outlines. I'd keep night time very dark, with no gamma or brightness hacks allowed. Anyway, some rendering improvement is needed as we should be able to see the outline of objects in a reasonable radius (2m to 5m) - making possible to walk around without light sources. It should be hard, but in this moment its not possible at all and thats no good, as i may want to be outside in night time without being a ridiculous easy target.

 

3. Fix light sources as we already know

 

4. Street lamps. I would add few (very few) random street lamp that switches between stable light to flashing light. To give my idea of "very few" i think in an area the size of Berezino there should be max 2 of them.

I wouldn't really care the "world is over there's no electric energy" point, in-game explanations are possible, and it would add something to the game. First, when down street in the darkness i could be able to have a clue of what's in a bigger range than my sight would allow. Then, one could be able to random spot movements.

 

5. Think of tasks one could do during the night. I think in a survival game the "make it through the night" element should be so important, but actually there's really nothing we can do and i've seen servers go empty while night was coming.

We should have reasons to find a safe spot - setup camp - setup light/fire. I'm just brainstorming now, but the only thing i can think of is using that time to perform required and slow tasks. Here's a little list of them

 

- Cooking. Cans and ready to use food should be RARE, and most of food should be cooked (you can eat raw, causing diseases or digestion disorders). So, night time would be the moment when to setup your camp and eat.

 

- Cold weather. We should feel the urge to stay inside with heating sources, because temperature should fall down a lot. Again, you have choice: go outside with a random risk of getting sick, or stay inside and wait for the sun. I would like to see sleeping bags too, we should use to warm up.

 

- Repair items and/or cleanup weapons. This should not be a one-click operation and should require player interacion. Keeping items clean may improve their longevity, or just raise up their status from damaged to worn or something like that.

 

- Dry wet clothes. Still related to cold management, we should be able to dry clothes in order to avoid sickness.

 

6. I think the inventory view should be affected by darkness too.

 

 

My point here is to brainstorm these aspects if you guys share my vision, as i'm aware that some suggestion could be flawed or dangerous to the gameplay.

Edited April 24, 2014 by brazorf

[MetapoliC 263]

I think the devs are more than aware about stuff like that.

 

Developers have a concrete plan to work on. Your ideas, like being able to dry the cloth, is nothing new at all. They will surely implement stuff like that. It only makes sence to talk about it here to share the vision maybe. Develipers will never read our threads and therefore it doesn't matter how bad/good/amazing your idea is, they will do it their way.

 

It's not like they are adding new stuff on the fly, they have a plan and everything takes it's time.