Please remove the Gamma option.

[Fesskey 0]

hi,

I love to play DayZ at night with the default gamma. With your surroundings so dark, that you'll need a light to see something. This really adds atmosphere to the game. Playing with a high Gamma setting is just unrealistic and gives an unfair advantage. I know this issue was discussed many times already. But nothing has changed. Why can't they just remove this slider which people only use in order to get an advantage? Maybe 0.5% of players, likely less really need that slider, the rest ist just abusing it.

Also I am sure many player would love to play with regular settings as I do, but don't do so because they don't want to be handicapped.
Please, Bohemia Interactive, adress that issue. I know there are many things to work at, but removing this slider should not be that hard and time intensive and would add a lot to the game.

 

kind regards,
Fesskey

[Killawife 599]

It wouldn't do any good. Anyone is able to change the brightness and gamma through their videosettings. You can even set it with hotkeys and stuff. I also think its a bit sad that nightime is usually gammacranking time but cant see any viable solution for this.

[Qpec 5]

Agree 100%

[quatermass 9]

IIRC the gamma setting of a modern monitor can be read via the DDC (Display Data Channel) and EDID (Extended Display Identification Data) data available from the monitor.

So any game could simply read the gamma settings of the video card and the monitor and warn if they're being abused?

 

[Fesskey 0]

So I have done some more "research" on this topic. Arma 3 seems to have a gamma correction. So players with bad monitors have an option to adjust the settings, but others who just use it to have a brighter nightvision won't see more than those with regular settings do. 

Here is a link to an older forum post adressing the same issue with screenshots demonstrating the effect (input by user: smasht, 3rd replie)

This seems to be a decent solution. Turning your Gamma up will still give you a slightly better vision, but it is a lot less than it is now in DayZ Standalone.

 

Edited June 5, 2016 by Fesskey
forgot smth

[benedictus 160]

One thing I have noticed that streamers usually turn the gamma up when its dark or dusky, otherwise otherwise the viewers can't see anything. 

Also tempering with view distance helps you to see people behind bushes/trees. I'm sure there's even more similar things that I cant think of now.

 

It's your decision if you want to break the immersion but I don't think these things can really be forced by the devs.

[Luftpancake 94]

YES, FOR GOD SAKES FIX IT! Streamers will learn to deal with it, besides, night vision goggles are coming into the game soon anyway.

[Troll_Hunter 54]

It would be nice if they would offer a game calibration menu, with day and night scenes to adjust the brightness, gamma, filter and other setting in game.

Maybe they could change the gamma curve not to affect the lowest of darks range 1-16. So the gamma setting affects the 16-232 range, instead of the 0-255 range.

 

A Possible solution: - a view distance reducing fog.

It is only natural in a competitive game for people to squeeze every advantage to gain a better chance to survive, hunt and kill. In real life there is no brightness level adjustment, but here in simulation world there is. A game designer may find a way around this simulation limitation. For instance I think it would make sense to use a sort of a fog to limit the view distance when it is dark. This way the advantage of bright settings is reduced. Night vision goggles could be made to partially thin this fog for the viewer, to offer a genuine advantage of a longer view distance. I'm thinking about A3's hight dependent fog, that raises and thickens in the evening and night. Being on high hills would yield a possible advantage, adding another tactical data consideration as to where to go when night falls.

[Fesskey 0]

This is a very weak argument for the following reasons @benedictus.

I. A game should first of all entertain the player, not some twitch viewers. Also the gamers are the majority. So you want to ruin the game experience of 500k who play the game, so that the 5k-10k twitch viewers can see the action a little better?

II. Viewers see, what Streamers see. The Streamer could play on daylight servers or just play, as intendet with a flashlight, a torch etc. I also watch DayZ Videos on Youtube and I enjoy to watch players like BarelyInfected, which don't turn up the Gamma. I can see, what he sees and it is great. It creates the atmosphere of a Zombie Survival Game.

[HomeStoned 3]

totally, sometimes gamma is glitched and doesn't work..
last night time cycle 6 of us had their gamma up, and only 4 of them could see.
I only turn mine up as mostly everyone else that has killed me, must have theirs turned up..
if you can't beat them, join them!

[BeefBacon 1185]

I have no issue with gamma only being something you have to set before you start playing. However, that wouldn't really fiix the issue. People could just set the gamma so that it's not too bright for day, and not too dark for night - or they could just change their monitor or video settings. The third-party solutions mean there'll always be gamma exploits. Limiting the degree to which we can alter gamma would make it less convenient, but it wouldn't do much to actually address the issue.

I don't know what can be done about it. Perhaps we could discuss other solutions.

[S3V3N 1402]

At this point I remember color theory at school. I hope I am remembering it right. Basically color consists out of two elements: saturation and value. Saturation is basically the intensity and value the darkness. In other words value is gamma. So if you want to have color, you will also need gamma. Crank gamma up high enough and all colors become white. Which means we have a 0-100 range in gamma setting now. If one were to limit that range to 0-30, we would already have a much darker night and our colors would be less bleached. Night would still look like night, but honestly this just reduces the problem and doesn't get rid of it. Everyone would still crank gamma to the max. Night would just look less bright than with the current options. 

The thing is: night is really awesome now, and I'm pissed off that I have to turn up gamma in danger zones. Elsewhere I usually leave it untouched. And it looks awesome going in a car at night (little too yellow/orange tinted headlights though). On the topic - we need a flashlight button. Maybe we can assign one, but the thing that pisses me off at night is that I have to manually go to my weapon attachments and turn off the flashlight. I just realized I haven't even tried glowsticks in 0.60. Probably looks awesome. I wonder if we'll ever see someone using them ^^

Edited June 9, 2016 by S3V3N

[Fesskey 0]

Thanks for your input @S3V3N.

I use glowsticks at really dark nights. Still most players would just kill me on sight and feel cool about that... I am really looking forward to a good hive where most people run around with glowsticks, flashlights and torches.

This way players can spot each other easily and this is the first step of interaction. And DayZ is all about player interaction. Killing a fully geared player is not nearly as satisfying as interacting with a stranger.

A solution of the gamma-problem would lead to more player interaction.

[Troll_Hunter 54]

I think the gamma cannot be 'fixed' by the game.

The in game gamma option actually helps novice players to play with equal vision compared to the trolls, who do know how to use 3rd party tools to crank up the gamma.

People still like to have equal vision distance, I say use a nice Arma 3 like fog during the night.

[Asmondian 359]

There must be a solution to "gamma hacks". Of curse if you locke the gamma option there are ways to change the brightness and gamma through their videosettings or through other metods, but the game looses so much realism and atmosphere with this. I think true players wont use them. So there must be a way to locke it and to limit or "ban" somehow the people who uses 3rd party tools to crank up the gamma.

Another solution is giving some real light to the game and makes increses of gamma useless. Something like:

• Adding some static cars with only one headlight on
• Some street lights
• Some fire or burning gums with zombies
• Something like this: 

Hope they can fix this because i think nightime is one of the best aspects of dayz.

[Killawife 599]

I noticed something strange when running around with lit torches the other night. Nobody shot at me. To be fair I only met one other person during my travels but I'm sure others saw the lights and thought: "that poor stupid noob, I'll let him live" as I went through Gorka, Vmc, vybor and the NW airfield before it became morning.

There is one big disadvantage to using torches or flashlights though. it actually limits the range of view quite a lot. You can only see like ten metres around you which can be quite disorientating at times.

 

Edited June 12, 2016 by Killawife

[Asmondian 359]

29 minutes ago, Killawife said:

I noticed something strange when running around with lit torches the other night. Nobody shot at me. To be fair I only met one other person during my travels but I'm sure others saw the lights and thought: "that poor stupid noob, I'll let him live" as I went through Gorka, Vmc, vybor and the NW airfield before it became morning.

There is one big disadvantage to using torches or flashlights though. it actually limits the range of view quite a lot. You can only see like ten metres around you which can be quite disorientating at times.

 

It´s calls realism and i think its good to happend men. Of curse is disadvantage and night is per se disorienting, but we should decide if dayz SA players like more the realism and atmosphere of a survival semi/rol game or just want a military pvp game (then just eliminate the food element, weather, health, sickness, cold, shaking, etc.). 

[Troll_Hunter 54]

First, thanks to Tommekk and his topic on how to solve the gamma in the game - in other words: the practical view distance. Tommekk's blur shader idea, gave me the idea of an organic looking noise shader, to actually simulate the noise our human eye sees in the dark.

This organic (smooth) looking noise is heavily applied to the darkest parts of the screen gradually becoming less and is nearly zero in the lighter dark parts. The medium and light parts have zero noise. So a car under a lit lamp post, or a clear night sky look noise free, while underneath the dark tree and bush the organic mushy noise absorbs all detail. This organic noise will obscure/dissolve small to big details in the shadows and dark, effectively equalising the practical view distance for all the players. However bigger objects can be observed if they move, just like in real life. Example, a player sitting still is near invisible, but you'll notice a 'shape' standing up making big/ fast movements.

Look at what happens when a camera is photographing/filming a very dark scene with applied high gain (ISO). With the increased gain the noise in the dark parts dissolves all details, not in the medium and light parts of the photo.

I like to see BI develop such a shader, making a truly smooth organic looking grain, that is applied according to the in game light level, not people's brightness / gamma settings. Applying more brightness or gamma will only make the blurry noise lighter, but will not allow players to see (more) detail in the dark.

With this eye simulating organic smooth noise in the dark parts, all players will be on a level playing field AND have a more realistic night-time / bunker / cave experience! - Win win.

I think the shader can be a global image shader, and it probably will not cost fps on a modern card.

Edited June 12, 2016 by Troll_Hunter
clairifications.