Time to fix night time once and for all! (with pool)

[MLCA 1]

First off, i know this topic has been brought up before but it seems did not get much attention or no definitive answer on what are the devs plans regarding this aspect of the game. So bare with me as this is a constructive topic in hopes to find a solution that would please the majority of our player base.

 

With the next patch nearing we already know that it will now be possible to light fires so i find this a good opportunity to debate this subject. After a quick look thru the server browser we can see that there are only a handful of servers that are NOT 24/7 daylight. Also the few servers with day/night cycles currently available are mostly empty.

 

Now, we also know that a good amount of players actually LIKES to play at night, so why is that its not popular at this moment? The answer is: the gamma and brightness slider.

A lot of players actually would like to play at night BUT at this moment its rather pointless. All one has to do its up the gamma and brightness sliders to get an unfair advantage over players that do not (players who like to experience the game as it is suppose to be).

 

So, for those that do not know what i am talking about ill break it down real quick.

Heres how the game looks with the gamma and brightness sliders set as default:

 

Heres how it looks with the gamma and brightness maxed out:

 

There also seems that some players get a better view at night without clouds. As for me i did not notice any differences.

Clouds off:

Clouds on:

 

And finally i have heard that some players can actually turn their MONITORS and DESKTOP gamma up thus giving them the same advantage. As for me again it did not work, setting my graphics card gamma up did not interfere with Dayz whatsoever and turning up my monitor gamma made my screen really bright but with the game still pitch black night in the background.

(if any of you are able to actually get any advantage feel free to post a screenshot).

 

So, as you can see with sliders on default you cannot see much of anything without a light source. That is realistic and i'm sure working as intended. Now on the second screen with the sliders maxed out you do not get a perfect clear view BUT it is a lot better, to the point where you can easily identify buildings and the terrain surrounding you. Easy to picture a situation where 2 players meet, one using default sliders and one with maxed out,  whoever is using the gamma advantage could easily take out the other player who would never even have any idea of what just happened.

 

And thats the point. I know players that would love to play at night but do not since they know that having the sliders set on max is the only way to not be at a disadvantage and when doing so it ruins the experience. So might as well log into a day time server.

 

So now we can talk possible solutions, the most obvious to me would be reworking the gamma and brightness sliders. Either locking it by default or decreasing its range. Think of them as a scale from 1 to 100. Possibly only allowing a range from 30 to 70%.

Here's how it looks with the sliders only up to around 70, 75%:

 

At 70,75% range a little improvement its noticeable, but at the same time does not turn the game into the black and white night that ruins its experience. Also since a lot of players seem to hate the pitch black night (realistic sliders set as default) it could maybe easy in some and have them try it out.

Now on locking the sliders as default, (no adjustments allowed) im not sure if it would have any impact on players with vision issues, and by that i mean real life medical conditions. So any feedback on this is appreciated since im sure we would not want to ruin Dayz for people that actually need them in order to enjoy the game.

 

Now on the second part to wrap it up: Night time cycle.

Currently we have long day cycles and i believe same amount of time for night cycles. (not sure on the actual numbers of hours/minutes, feel free to post them if you know).

If i'm not mistaken the whole concept was to tie them up to actual real life day/night cycles but atm it seems that this is not working. At least i have not found a server that works this way but i do remember it being like that in the mod back in 2012.

This concept also seemed to upset a lot of players due to the fact if someone needs to work during the day and when they get to playtime at night they would always be stuck at night time gameplay. Sure you could try and find a server in a different time zone to bypass that issue but then again it brings another problem with having a bad/worse ping.

 

Well, maybe we could have a shorter day/night cycle? For example like in Rust. Maybe a 1 hour day and 30 minute night? 3 hours day, 1/30 hours night?

The numbers would be up for discussion of course. So feel free to add your CONSTRUCTIVE IDEAS and OPINIONS.

Also we all know "OMG ITS ALPHA" so no need to post it again. And for those who absolutely hate night time gameplay in Dayz don't worry. There will still be plenty of 24/7 daylight servers so no need to hate.

 

Cheers,

 

 

 

[n1kko 326]

The only thing I can think of to stop the gamma/brightness abuse is to force client side values during certain hours of the night.  

[rybo 171]

Yep, remove gamma and brightness from in game settings and they fixed the exploiting. It's that simple. Why it's so hard to figure that out is beyond human comprehension.

 

I mean come on my monitor already has a manashery of gamma/brightness/color settings. The double redundancies is nice for other games but in DayZ? No way, way, to easy to exploit. Nuff said on that topic.

 

As for overall lighting. Yes, needs allot more love. It's pretty awful. Not even half as good as Arma 3. Alphers..Nuff said.

 

And last but not least. Yes, I would like day/night cycles to go by in 6 hour cycles. That means 4 hours of day with 2 hours allotted for dusk and dawn followed by 4 hours of night.

 

If you want the player to experience the cycle then they need to make it based around the average play time. IE. how long you game out per session. So the length would need to be changed based on that statistic. Nuff said again and final.

Edited May 14, 2014 by RyBo

[Ludz 17]

I'm for the lock of some options promoting the cheat.

 

People will always find a solution for outpassing "sport" and "fair-play" game rules. Cause they re arrogant and twisted for willing to win, whatever the price !

 

It may sounds a little totalitarian but imo, seeing the mentality of some people - Yes, I'm talking to you, cheaters - i will welcome this choice from the Dev Team. I'm sure they re aware of it. but until game release i think we ll have to handle cheats, hacks, a little more !

 

IMO, the night looks pretty real actually. It's dark but that the way the night used to be. or we not live on the same planet.

 

the flashlight is weak like on reality. get a military torchlight and it's not the same business ! but actually i don't like play night cause zombies wall-glitching and seeing you from miles. it's hard on day with 2-3 zombies when just spawned. it sounds really impossible with 8 hours night time.

 

Are the server planned to be more resilient on durability ? maybe a 24h restart server with loot  spawning and about a 3 hours night/day cycle, with the ability/necessity for sleeping during the night.

 

Hey, look at that. i'm sure this will be awesome : you can sleep to make the night to pass more quickly (for players who don't want to go out at night) Meanwhile your character can be looted or killed. I don't know if feasible lol.

but you get the point.

 

EDIT : the 1st photo on the topic shows a relatively bright night. i mean, it's a full-moon night here and it's looks good, what the problem ?

Edited May 14, 2014 by Ludz

[solodude23 649]

Poll question 3 is irrelevant, isn't it? From what I understand servers will be able to set their own day/night cycle times.

Edited May 14, 2014 by solodude23

[okami (DayZ) 129]

I would really like to see the brightness and gamme sliders go, yes people can use external mechanisms to manipulate this but removing the ingame mechanic will help a lot because these people that like unfair advantages are lazy.

 

On the other hand i think the default values should be tweaked, in reality if you are in the open and there and not much clouds it can actually be quite bright in the night even if you are not near civilization. But if i just want to travel at night on the roads, not in the forests, its with default gamma almost impossible to see the road. Just tweak it a little bit.

 

And having played a lot recently at night, i really have to say that i have a problem with the flashlight indoors. Maybe its something with me but - especially in narrow building like the new sa appartments - it really makes me feel uncomfortable after a while. Even remembering the old flashlights we had when i was young you could change the focus to have a wider light indoors. The current flashlight seems to be focused on long range so the light indoors is just way to narrow. The modern, civillian led flashlight i have today... if i turn it on in a room the WHOLE room is illuminated. It doesnt have to be so extreme in dayz but i would like to see the flashlight adjustable or automatically adjusted indoors.

[victusmortuus 1074]

Night time is too dark and if they remove the gamma exploit I'll just adjust my gamma in my nvidia panel.

[qww 287]

Night time is too dark and if they remove the gamma exploit I'll just adjust my gamma in my nvidia panel.

exploiters will be exploiters..

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

Night time is too dark and if they remove the gamma exploit I'll just adjust my gamma in my nvidia panel.

Then stop ruining other players experiences by exploiting. Stay on your stupid day only servers. I'd ban you from my server in a heartbeat if I caught you exploiting. Edited May 14, 2014 by Caboose187

[qww 287]

anyway, wheres the pool ?

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

anyway, wheres the pool ?

I think he/she misspelled poll

[Ghostflux 100]

Night time is too dark and if they remove the gamma exploit I'll just adjust my gamma in my nvidia panel.

 

I wish BattleEye could scan for people that do things like that, and ban them straight away. Because that's nothing more than the behaviour of a cheater, you use an external program to give you an advantage in-game.

[victusmortuus 1074]

I wish BattleEye could scan for people that do things like that, and ban them straight away. Because that's nothing more than the behaviour of a cheater, you use an external program to give you an advantage in-game.

 

I only play on day time servers anyway, my post is just the realisation of the situation. So either Rocket makes night time fun and not pitch black or people like me will use the gamma exploit.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

I wish BattleEye could scan for people that do things like that, and ban them straight away. Because that's nothing more than the behaviour of a cheater, you use an external program to give you an advantage in-game.

They could just use their monitor setting to do the same, no external program needed.  Can't detect that.  What should happen is the game should completely wash out when you adjust your gamma and make it completely unplayable.

[irl-calibre 744]

I think night time will be sorted once they take dx9 out of the equation all together, as it is it's quite possible to tweak a really good atmospheric night in the game, yes it requires integrity on behalf of the players, but I have faith in humanity by and large. if you don't like playing at night because you assume every single person you encounter is going to be cheating, then don't play. At the end of the day you're going to run into someone eventually cheating in online gaming, it's been like that since Jesus was a wee lad.  Shit happens.

[Dagwood 680]

As far as players exploiting gamma externally: arma3 implemented a mechanic/feature that would blend objects in shadows with the background even if gamma and brightness are tampered with. They'll get it done.

[kander 80]

Night is unrealistically dark. There's no way I'd find it so hard to see at night IRL, even on a moonless night with heavy clouds. At least give us a (entirely realistic) naturally improving night vision. I think it's supposed to take 25 mins for maximum night vision to kick in, reset, of course, by exposure to bright light at any point.

[agentneo 337]

Just lock the sliders most people will not be arsed to change their monitor for one game, its just cos the sliders are so easy accessible and lazy people do it

 

I am happy playing nights as they are and I feel every server should be required to have a full cycle (however fast they like) but not simply restarting always day time, i feel that is a cheat, nighttime brings so much more danger and not been able to snipe everyone at a mile away adds more strategy. I play on x64 server someitmes, and it is amazing how many pussies will leave every nighttime and then come back in during day. I think literally no one enjoys night and the community of day z is such a bunch of dishonourable Exploiters! Sorry to the good players but we seem to be the minority

Edited May 15, 2014 by AgentNe0

[Mathylde 3]

Alpha is the development time when you create features. Beta is when you tune/fix these features.

 

While how bad you see at night needs to be tuned, now is not the time to do so.

[Grimey Rick 3417]

@OP: Enable HDR undering Video > Rendering.

 

Then you'll see the light... at night. (;

[yorkmorgan 191]

im with you on the gamma exploit but its really not too dark, just turn on the flashlight.

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

Voted, now where is my free pool?