too dark at night

[JimiEZ (DayZ) 0]

Well, d'uuuhh night time is *supposed* to be a lot more difficult to manage, especially if you're a new Beanie. Night time is just as it should be, except the blatant gamma/brightness cheating should be prevented somehow.

Think about it: if you were a survivor in "real" zombie outbreak, how would you feel about taking a hike through the zombie infested landscape in the middle of the night? Hell, how would you feel going through some unknown woods in the middle of the night on your own, even without a zombie outbreak?

Night is supposed to be scary, difficult and generally horribly sucky (especially for new players). The obvious solution is not to go out when it's dark, especially without proper equipment. Incredible that I even have to spell it out. If you still insist going out when it's dark, well then at least make sure you've geared up during the day. Popping a flare, using chemilights or a flashlight enable you to navigate in the darkness but they also give out your location and this is *exactly* how it's supposed to go.

[naizarak 41]

Well' date=' [i']d'uuuhh night time is *supposed* to be a lot more difficult to manage, especially if you're a new Beanie. Night time is just as it should be, except the blatant gamma/brightness cheating should be prevented somehow.

Think about it: if you were a survivor in "real" zombie outbreak, how would you feel about taking a hike through the zombie infested landscape in the middle of the night? Hell, how would you feel going through some unknown woods in the middle of the night on your own, even without a zombie outbreak?

Night is supposed to be scary, difficult and generally horribly sucky (especially for new players). The obvious solution is not to go out when it's dark, especially without proper equipment. Incredible that I even have to spell it out. If you still insist going out when it's dark, well then at least make sure you've geared up during the day. Popping a flare, using chemilights or a flashlight enable you to navigate in the darkness but they also give out your location and this is *exactly* how it's supposed to go.

that's the idea, but a lot of players just tweak their brightness/gamma settings to completely bypass this challenge. it puts everyone who chooses not to cheat at a blatant disadvantage.

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

I don't mind the dark, as it adds to the atmosphere as you have the option of using one of the available light sources or crawling around blind, straining your ears to bypass zeds. Any good horror requires both darkness and limited or unreliable light sources.

In terms of visual aids that allow omnipotence, I think NVGs are overpwered and should be limited by short battery life (e.g. they are found with low batteries) and must therefore be used sparingly. Although they are rare, i don't buy the argument that they are easily defeated by flares as, if this is a PvP situation, you'll probably be butchered by a bandit with NVGs before you manage to throw the damn thing (unless you're already running around with a flare basically pointing out that you're an easy kill to all the bandits without NVGs). There is another thread on this so I'll leave it at that on that topic.

In terms of light sources that involve a trade off of some kind, we have flares that obviously attract attention, chem lights that produce a weak light but are harder to spot from a distance, flashlights that require you to give up your pistol slot (which seems an ARMA limitation rather than anything to do with realism). Some guns have lights (M4A3 CCO, G17, Remington), but these are harder to come by or have ammo limitations. This is a fairly decent selection of light sources but hey, I guess I'm just obsessed with headamps (plus or minus red filter)... I think being able to run through dark woods keeping a light beam focused where you're looking rather than jiggling around where ever your weapon of flashlight is pointing is a good thing. Another possibility is replacing matches with a lighter that you have to shield when you move, and blows out when you run, and provides a limited radius of illumination - good perhaps as a ladt resort light source.

My point is that the dark is awesome if there are a number of ways to alleviate it that suit a variety of play styles, with scope for getting better kit, without leaving you completely crippled or at a massive advantage.

[ssential 0]

Night is supposed to be scary' date=' difficult and generally horribly sucky (especially for new players). The obvious solution is [i']not to go out when it's dark, especially without proper equipment.

I absolutely agree with this. However, the problem is that night is like 8h long. So when I come home in RL it's always dark ingame. How am I supposed to get good equipment first? I love how dark and scary the night is, especially since in 99% of other games the night is only a bluer day which is super lame since you don't have to adapt.

In dayZ you have to adapt, change your playstyle and that's pretty cool. BUT, if it's always dark when you play, like in my case, it's no longer a gameplay element. It's always dark, and you always play the same way. If a day in DayZ was only about 6 hours, you could actually prepare for the night without playing ~12h a day, and the day/night cycle gets much much more important and scary, as now you could actually defend your safehouse and wait for the dawn, and be "relieved". This gameplay is missing at the moment at least for the guys that don't play 12h straight.

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

Maybe a few servers with reversed (but still full length) night/day for all the people that prefer one over the other? Without having to have epic ping or get booted from a server across the the other side of the world?

[statistx 5]

Hell' date=' how would you feel going through some unknown woods in the middle of the night on your own, even [i']without a zombie outbreak?

Don't compare with reality, cause the night I see in the game, is 100% darker than the nights i see in reality.

Even if i wasn't someone with very good nightsight (probably cause I'm colorblind, at least thats what i read somewhere), it still doesn't compare to a realistic darkness.

that's the idea, but a lot of players just tweak their brightness/gamma settings to completely bypass this challenge. it puts everyone who chooses not to cheat at a blatant disadvantage.

And i disagree here too.

I repeat myself constantly on that topic, but there are graphic cards/settings/screens out there, that seem to handle the nights pretty shitty, which makes it a necessity to crank up the sliders.

So if you judge the people that have to do it, then with that logic to me everyone who can play the game at max settings, full viewing distance and has a screen that produces more grayscales than mine, is a cheater.

I'm not against hard gameplay and dark nights, but in my opinion the nights are wayyyy too dark. i should at least be able to see if i run right into a zombie.

With my current pc i only see a zombie attacking me, when i get hit and have to use the muzzleflash to find out from where, cause even up close i can't make them out in the darkness WITH FULLY TURNED UP SLIDERS.

Games where the moon is up are the perfect setting from my experience. I can make stuff out thats in my closer range and still have to use lightsources.

The idea with the matches is also great, since i felt pretty annoyed when i ran out of flares, had a set of matches in my inventory and couldn't do anything other than logging out...or the idea thats discussed in another topic: random lightsources thrown into the world. Then at least there would be some lighting point of interests in the darkness which you can use to navigate and still got the challenge in between.

[pekhe 4]

That is just too cool that the game follows the real lunar cycle.

Is this true?

If so, wow, just wow...

[saz 3]

That is just too cool that the game follows the real lunar cycle.

Is this true?

If so' date=' wow, just wow...

[/quote']

Try it in the editor and you will see that it follows the schedule +-1day. Note that since Chernarus is based on the Czech Republic so I would guess it goes after its lunar cycle.

[statistx 5]

Try it in the editor and you will see that it follows the schedule +-1day. Note that since Chernarus is based on the Czech Republic so I would guess it goes after its lunar cycle.

isn't it currently like "some servers have the moon today, others don't"?

[Reklin 56]

It is too dark at night, moonless nights it's practically unplayable without nvg's or running around with a flare (would you do that in a zombie apocalypse?) or holding a chemlight (completely ruins immersion for me, glowing bright green while creeping through a town, I think not)

It's not realistic, far darker than any night in real life.

[saz 3]

Try it in the editor and you will see that it follows the schedule +-1day. Note that since Chernarus is based on the Czech Republic so I would guess it goes after its lunar cycle.

isn't it currently like "some servers have the moon today' date=' others don't"?

[/quote']

I only play on FR2 if I can help it and it seems like it follows the schedule. So I don't really know how it is on other servers. But they should all be the same.

[Drake Sigar 9]

It is too dark at night' date=' moonless nights it's practically unplayable without nvg's or running around with a flare (would you do that in a zombie apocalypse?) or holding a chemlight (completely ruins immersion for me, glowing bright green while creeping through a town, I think not)

It's not realistic, far darker than any night in real life.

[/quote']

Don't you have the advantage of being somewhat illuminated by thousands of street lamps, car lights, and adult neon signs? I sure don't like being unable to see either, but the whole point of the dark is it's... well, dark. If they're going to make it light enough for us when we're crankin' up the brightness and contrast, why bother having a night cycle at all? I think the main problem is the vertical challenge when combined with the new high zombie count and respawn rates.

[simasz 15]

It is too dark at night' date=' moonless nights it's practically unplayable without nvg's or running around with a flare (would you do that in a zombie apocalypse?) or holding a chemlight (completely ruins immersion for me, glowing bright green while creeping through a town, I think not)

It's not realistic, far darker than any night in real life.

[/quote']

It can be realistic. I know a number of ex-soldiers who served around Afghanistan, and one thing they remember very clear - the nights were so dark that the eyes would not get used to it and they could not see anything on the ground and even going a few meters to the field toilet was a pain in the ass.

[statistx 5]

Don't you have the advantage of being somewhat illuminated by thousands of street lamps' date=' car lights, and adult neon signs?

[/quote']

Forests don't have those. I used to take walks through a park reservoir kinda thing nearby. Full moon, even in the forest, is almost light enough to see exactly where to go, if someone is standing somewhere and all that.

No moon was still enough for me to see for about 100 m without an issue, i even warned some friends about a post that was standing in the middle of the way, before we got there.