Nighttime in this game is horrible

[yorkmorgan 191]

i really, really hope this never happens, it looks ridiculous. 

[FrostDMG 398]

People who say "it's literally pitch black" at night are over exaggerating very badly. Yeah, it's dark, but it's not THAT dark.

 

If you're out in a field and let's say there's no moon but there are a few clouds in the sky you'll be able to see outlines of trees and where you're going. You won't be able to see stuff on the ground, but you won't be in pitch blackness either.

 

However, if you go into a shaded area i.e a forest, then yes, it's pretty much pitch black.

 

I like nights in DayZ. You can actually get lost and wonder around for a bit, not so much in the day. IMO the gamma/HDR/brightness options should be disabled so that anyone who wants to play with an unfair advantage over the LEGIT players has to at least use their GFX drivers.

 

Forgot to add, maybe they're a little TOO dark sometimes, but with few tweaks they should be bang on perfect.

Edited May 25, 2014 by FrostDMG

[sai (DayZ) 137]

This is very disheartening to read and may be the final nail in whether I keep my server up.  No offence but this is actually kind of bullshit to those who pay good money to rent servers as this is a game breaking exploit and it's more of a slap in the face to know that Bohemia won't or can't fix it.

It's not unfixable at all, you can stop some objects surfaces from "reflecting" light. 

You could put in a code to stop people messing with the graphics, it is an online game, easily checked. 

 

And a tv being turned up in gama or brightness is way different from the graphics themselves being change, like in the dayz options menu. So this is not a valid excuse. 

 

There are loads of ways to fix the night, you just have to trust the dev's knowledge and creativity. Good luck lol. but still.

[retti 7]

Night seems like it could be enjoyable for roleplayers and survivalists, but if your doing any kind of PvP you just log off or play a server that cycles day only. Blind + light sources being big flags for "attack me while im blind" really deter night playtime.

 

Plus lol at looting up with a flashlight.

 

nightvision goggles could be fun

[eleventhavenue 204]

I think the major problems with nights right now are:

 

- Night vision exploits

- Flashlight too focused.

- You can't see if you've ran into a fence and now running on the same spot. You can't feel if you're moving or not. This is really disorientating

- It's hard to judge distance and direction to zeds by sound and zeds are often very silent

- People expect to be sniped or hunted down if they do anything to show where they are. This needs to change. I don't think it's healthy for the game.

- Zeds have the same awareness no matter what time of day it is (I think). In the mod DayZ they had lower visual awareness but the same audial awareness.

- We really need to have a better reason for playing during nights than ´´It's awesome´´ or ´´It's easier to hide from players´´

 

I think fixing this would make nights much more playable.

 

I would not like NVG's. At all. Even if you make them ´´balanced´´, where is the fun in just bypassing the difficulties of darkness? DayZ is supposed to be difficult.

Edited May 25, 2014 by EleventhAvenue

[Hikurac 115]

Maybe you could deactivate night until its finished, cause right now the only option at night is to log on another server that has no nighttime.

I see what you try to do with night, but right now, you cant even see whats in your way at night when you cant move on when you dont have a flashlight on.

That's kind of why they give you a flashlight when you spawn... I don't understand why they should disable night time either, considering that 95% of servers are daytime only anyways, which is completely ass backwards for a "hardcore simulator" in the first place.

[ColdHeat 59]

Let's just wait and see how the devs handle it.

Gaming wise everything would be an improvement right now and It would be a goddamn shame if playing in the night would be nothing more but a very atmospheric suicide trip. It's currently not the most pressing issue but it shows that DayZ still has a long road ahead to the beta.

[WrecklessMEDIC 129]

I don't think you have seen true darkness when it's night time...I went to my grandfather's ranch FAR away from any civilization in Arizona and when it turned into night I couldn't see in front of me nor my hand (barely). AND not to mention that the moon and stars were out too, but I still couldn't see. So, yea you must have so badass supernatural eyes or something.

I work at an oil refinery in Northen Alberta, Canada hundreds of miles from civilization. Even on a cloudy night without the moon or any source of light I can still see far better than DayZ's version of nighttime.

You're eyes can remarkably adjust after spending enough time in the dark. Unfortunately that is just not possible in DayZ right now.

[Etherious 907]

I work at an oil refinery in Northen Alberta, Canada hundreds of miles from civilization. Even on a cloudy night without the moon or any source of light I can still see far better than DayZ's version of nighttime.

You're eyes can remarkably adjust after spending enough time in the dark. Unfortunately that is just not possible in DayZ right now.

Fair enough, but you work there so your eyes will get used to it. I rarely visit my grandfather's ranch. :)

[Jvalor 59]

My 2 cents - Whether the night time is accurate or not, I personally would substitute night time realism for an actual realistic day/night cycle in game. Playing at night could be a lot of fun and add new ways to play, but not many people play on servers that has night time active because they don't want to run around in the pitch black for hours.

My solution to overall gameplay? During night time, make outside dark, but you are still able to see things because of moonlight. In buildings or any interior, however, make it pitch black so that you would have to pull out your flash light if you wanted to search that house or apartment building.

[dallas 5195]

My best experience is from the mod, when a group of us visited Solnichniy at night. Most of us carried chemlights and lots of flares, so we'd light every part of the town. At some point we spotted a player with a bandit skin,  who ran around like a headless chicken caught in the 10 road flares we threw at him, until we got him.

 

No gamma, no NVGs, just flashlights, chemlights and road flares.

Edited May 26, 2014 by Dallas

[FrostDMG 398]

Doing it right! Very cool screenies.

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

My best experience is from the mod, when a group of us visited Solnichniy at night. Most of us carried chemlights and lots of flares, so we'd light to every part of the town. At some point we spotted a player with a bandit skin,  who ran around like a headless chicken caught in the 10 road flares we threw at him, until we got him.

 

No gamma, no NVGs, just flashlights, chemlights and road flares.

 

I miss my chemlights.

[dallas 5195]

Me too.

[cejota14 130]

I think night time needs some light sources...life burning buildings, cars, barricades, roadblocks or just plain light from the moon or the lightpost. We all know things like the electricity would go out after a few weeks without maintenance, but this is a game...so they should be in (I know is asking too much with the current build, so I'm not arguing that)

 

 

Plus, even with that, we would need flashlight, torches, flares, lamps and stuffs like that in the nighttime

[matejkvassay 13]

I think night should stay dark but not so much you can't even know where are you walking to.

[dallas 5195]

I think night should stay dark but not so much you can't even know where are you walking to.

 

Darkness depends on the time of the day, the day of the month and the month of the year.

 

When the sun sets and rises.

When the moon appear.

Whether the moon is full or new.

Whether the sky is overcast or not.

Edited May 26, 2014 by Dallas

[Briljin 102]

It's more of a pain to minimize each time you wanna use it. Plus it would affect everything, not just the game. Removing the option is the best way of limiting numbers of these exploiters.

 

I really hope this game adds in support for windowed full screen mode but you can still modify the config to basically run windowed mode at the same resolution as your desk top and remove the "minimize" issue.  I would be fine with them removing it from the game, when they notice that the moon and stars actually give off ambient light levels in the RL and add a similar aspect to Dayz.  They may as well turn off your monitor at night.  We are not playing underground were there is a total lack of all ambient light...

[xenology 61]

You got those pitch black nights everywhere with no civilisation around (cities create some kind of ambient light that makes the night less dark around them) and weak moonlight (the African savanna provides a pretty good example).

 

As its after the zombie apocalypse there are no cities to create light. Arguably you should have more moonlight just to see a little better and maybe a wider cone on your flashlight or head torch.

I live in the forest in the middle of nowhere now in northern michigan with no cities near anywhere and theres still light even on a new moon you can see so the idea cities cause that is invalid

[roanlamond@gmail.com 67]

This is very disheartening to read and may be the final nail in whether I keep my server up.  No offence but this is actually kind of bullshit to those who pay good money to rent servers as this is a game breaking exploit and it's more of a slap in the face to know that Bohemia won't or can't fix it.

Umm, what? bullshit? slap in the face?

 

 It's unfixable because it's an issue with gamma. I would think no further explanation is needed. But hell lets humor you.

 

Gamma is one of those things that are in options because not every monitor is created equal and you have to calibrate to the game. Now lets say they go "fuck calibrating" and remove gamma slider all together. Well let me just load up my Geforce control panel and crank up the gamma on my screen myself.

 

Just about every video card or monitor has an alternative to affect things like color, brightness, contrast, and Gamma.

 

 

Now with this information. Tell me how you would possibly fix something that a program/game has no control over.

[benedictus 160]

Just that flashlights basicly make you a big neon sign for every Sniper...

 

Exactly, whats your point?

[pillock 850]

In my experience of night walking in rural Britain, you're best off sticking to roads. Crossing fields is pretty hazardous, even if you're being careful: once your eyes adjust, you can just about make out sillouttes of tree-lines, or maybe the horizon if the cloud-cover isn't too thick, but you cannot see where you're putting your feet - and this is the main problem. You step in cowshit, and you stumble on uneven ground or protruding rocks and tree roots. If you run, as most people do in DayZ, you're going to go arse-over-tit pretty quickly and probably do yourself a minor injury while you're at it.

 

Forget about going into a forest - you cannot see a god damn thing. You walk into trees, you trip over stuff, you get whacked in the face by low-hanging branches - and this is when you're taking extra slow, small, careful steps and you're waving your arms in front of you like some demented sleep-walker.

 

I once walked straight into a small pond. Another time, I was crossing a field that, unknown to me, had a horse in it. I must have spooked it and it started running all over place. I had NO fucking idea where it was - all I could hear was the pounding of hooves all around me. Scared the living SHIT out of me.

 

Unlit buildings are also pitch black inside at night.

 

As far as DayZ's scenario is concerned, doing anything at night without some sort of light source would be stupid, in my opinion. You'd never find anything useful, moving around would take ages, you'd get attacked by zombies you couldn't see, you'd probably hurt yourself by tripping over or encountering sharp objects, and you'd also risk losing some of your kit if you examined your inventory. If this sort of stuff could be implemented, it would make night time fantastically tense and potentially a lot of fun in terms of the horror factor. I have high hopes.

[hefeweizen 254]

Exactly, whats your point?

A simple If>Then.

 

If the options at hand are:

 

A. "Find a day time server." or...

 

B. "Depend on what is essentially landing lights for sniper bullets."

 

Then the overwhelming majority of players are going to pick option A. Therefore as it is now night time gets no use, and development time is wasted on night time features that never get used.

[dallas 5195]

In my experience of night walking in rural Britain, you're best off sticking to roads. Crossing fields is pretty hazardous, even if you're being careful: once your eyes adjust, you can just about make out sillouttes of tree-lines, or maybe the horizon if the cloud-cover isn't too thick, but you cannot see where you're putting your feet - and this is the main problem. You step in cowshit, and you stumble on uneven ground or protruding rocks and tree roots. If you run, as most people do in DayZ, you're going to go arse-over-tit pretty quickly and probably do yourself a minor injury while you're at it.

 

Forget about going into a forest - you cannot see a god damn thing. You walk into trees, you trip over stuff, you get whacked in the face by low-hanging branches - and this is when you're taking extra slow, small, careful steps and you're waving your arms in front of you like some demented sleep-walker.

 

I once walked straight into a small pond. Another time, I was crossing a field that, unknown to me, had a horse in it. I must have spooked it and it started running all over place. I had NO fucking idea where it was - all I could hear was the pounding of hooves all around me. Scared the living SHIT out of me.

 

Unlit buildings are also pitch black inside at night.

 

As far as DayZ's scenario is concerned, doing anything at night without some sort of light source would be stupid, in my opinion. You'd never find anything useful, moving around would take ages, you'd get attacked by zombies you couldn't see, you'd probably hurt yourself by tripping over or encountering sharp objects, and you'd also risk losing some of your kit if you examined your inventory. If this sort of stuff could be implemented, it would make night time fantastically tense and potentially a lot of fun in terms of the horror factor. I have high hopes.

 

I had a group leader on an exercise start running in such a night, he ran straight into a pyramid wall consisting of three rolls of NATO barbwire. We freed him using the blue light from a G-shock watch.

 

We also patrolled a forrest in similar light conditions, could see the person next to you and then we had a contact and started firing. The trees and surroundings lit up like stroboscope by the muzzle flashes. Probably one of the most memorable things I've experienced, if I hadn't hadn't fallen waste deep into a stream 30 minutes later.

[jgbtl292 45]

for me i the night in the game too colourless - i mean all is grey ALL and the grey scale in the not the best.  sometimes look like a black - grey stances.

 

a little bit colour in the night - a little bit ;) and a little bit and a other star sky !  a star sky from a area without light towns and villages. we have many many more stars at the night ^^