Night Time is unfairly darker for some players vs others

[Cyral 10]

So I understand the reason behind darkening the nights and implementing measures that stop players turning their gamma up to get day-like brightness at night.

However, within my group of friends, it has become apparent whilst playing that the darkness was not tested properly across a range of hardware systems and monitors.

Just within my group alone, we see various darkness of night. Myself for example, gets 100% pitch black across the entire screen at night. On the best of nights, you will see very very faint white dots being the stars if you look straight up and a faint sphere of the moon, but 110% jet black everything else.

Whereas other players have varying degrees, comparing the darkness we all see at the same time, we note that some of us can see FAR more than others by a VERY obvious amount. Some can see enough to be able to navigate their way around whilst others might as well have a box over their head.

This is unfair and needs addressing. It could be that very expensive monitors are giving people an advantage, my cheap monitor only shows me pitch black and I know others with expensive screens are able to see more.

You implemented this for fairness but its only made it more unfair now.

Let me remind you that human eye does adjust in the dark of night even in very dark parts of the world, enough to be able to see around you on a full moonlit night. Ok, theres no such thing as pitch black darkness for the human eye in any part of the world - human eye will always be able to make out more than my dayz character can see on my game can.

[aaronlands 55]

This is fascinating.  Can you provide a bit more information about what monitor you're using as well as what monitors your friends were using?  It would also be interesting to know what settings you have set on your monitor.  And one final other question: were you playing in a bright or dark room?

[Cyral 10]

On 2/14/2019 at 2:43 AM, aaronlands said:

This is fascinating.  Can you provide a bit more information about what monitor you're using as well as what monitors your friends were using?  It would also be interesting to know what settings you have set on your monitor.  And one final other question: were you playing in a bright or dark room?

i bought a new monitor today to replace my 2 old monitors. (an old AOC - 1080 TN LCD, and slightly newer benq g2222hdl (LED LCD TN))

I bought an MSI Optix MAG27CQ (1440p, VA panel) today for around 550$.

I just moved dayz between the BenQ screen and my new MSI screen  and this is the difference when using the MSI monitors 'high gamma' mode.

As you can see, people with expensive monitors have unfair advantage in this game at night, over people without $600+ monitors. Night should not be made so dark so as to cause such an advantage to people with better equipment.

note: Photo taken within few seconds of each other. so not a difference of ingame time/clouds etc. (left an older monitor, but by no means trash, on the right, a modern monitor with built in options to increase gamma and features to increase dark games specifically etc.)

I think by making it so dark, it makes it unfair for people with better screens. So making it lighter would lessen the divide a bit. my opinion.

 

[Guy Smiley 534]

One huge issue is that weather is not synced.  For some it my be a totally cloudy foggy night and for others it's completely clear.  To me, this is a major issue and should be addressed immediately as it does impact pvp.  The unsynced weather makes pvp extremely unbalanced and favours the person who has no cloud coverage and fog

[aaronlands 55]

Hey Cyral, thanks for providing that info.  That is certainly an interesting observation.  Like you said the expensive monitors are able to depict darker colours with more depth especially with those tailored gamma settings.

With respect to the photos, you say that they were taken several seconds apart.  Is this a image of two merged photos?  If so, was the camera on an automatic light balancing setting?  Just want to make sure what were seeing on these images is true and accurate.

What do you think should be the way forward?  In my opinion, I like the dark and dangerous night but there needs to be an even playing ground.  I suspect that was the intention of the gamma updates anyhow.  I don't like the idea of making the whole night brighter to accommodate monitors that have poorer black depth.  

I think eye adjustment can be a way around this.  On bright nights (full moon, no cloud cover) I think the player eye (subject to character nutritional factors) should be able to adjust to the darkness to the extent that there is a relatively even playing ground.  

[Uncle Zed 272]

Play on a server like mine, with Arctic Latitudes and set to a time of year when the nights are more of a twilight. I did that specifically because of the pitch dark nights.

Also, life-hack: Use F12 to take a screenshot in-game 🙂

[Cyral 10]

17 hours ago, BetterDeadThanZed said:

Play on a server like mine, with Arctic Latitudes and set to a time of year when the nights are more of a twilight. I did that specifically because of the pitch dark nights.

Also, life-hack: Use F12 to take a screenshot in-game 🙂

Lol, Screenshot ingame wouldn't show the difference of how different monitors display the game.
Only an actual photo would be able to do that.

 

 

18 hours ago, aaronlands said:

Hey Cyral, thanks for providing that info.  That is certainly an interesting observation.  Like you said the expensive monitors are able to depict darker colours with more depth especially with those tailored gamma settings.

With respect to the photos, you say that they were taken several seconds apart.  Is this a image of two merged photos?  If so, was the camera on an automatic light balancing setting?  Just want to make sure what were seeing on these images is true and accurate.

What do you think should be the way forward?  In my opinion, I like the dark and dangerous night but there needs to be an even playing ground.  I suspect that was the intention of the gamma updates anyhow.  I don't like the idea of making the whole night brighter to accommodate monitors that have poorer black depth.  

I think eye adjustment can be a way around this.  On bright nights (full moon, no cloud cover) I think the player eye (subject to character nutritional factors) should be able to adjust to the darkness to the extent that there is a relatively even playing ground.  

Those were 2 photos spliced together.
For consistencies sake, I put the game in windowed mode and dragged it half displayed on 1 screen and half displayed on the other in this next shot.

What You see in the photo is accurate to what I am seeing with my eyes however i can say. I can see a lot more easily on the expensive screen.

Honestly I think the night should be dark, but on clear nights with moonlight - the eyes should adjust after a bit of time.
I think they should probably survey or research what the majority of players have in terms of monitors and cater the darkness to suit an average across the board making it more uniform for everyone as you'll never be able to make the game look the same for everyone.

[aaronlands 55]

Dang Cyral, that's even more drastic than your first photo!  Thanks for posting it though.  I'm definitely going to be thinking about this.

[Guy Smiley 534]

Well, one monitor looks like it's got it's built in brightness cranked, right monitor, and the left monitor has just slightly turned up brightness.  I say this because the blacks in the background are extremely fuzzy and this only happens when brightness/gamma gets cranked up

[Just Caused 423]

I've came across the same bug myself. I was playing with my friend and his morning came way faster than mine. Also, on my screen there was light rain while he didn't have it. 

This bug was present on year one, where you had to relog to fix time. Comeone guys, one step forward two steps back... 

[Weyland Yutani (DayZ) 1159]

On 2/26/2019 at 10:55 AM, BetterDeadThanZed said:

Play on a server like mine, with Arctic Latitudes and set to a time of year when the nights are more of a twilight. I did that specifically because of the pitch dark nights.

Also, life-hack: Use F12 to take a screenshot in-game 🙂

Can you give us a screenshot? I'm interested in what you're seeing. Thanks.

[Uncle Zed 272]

12 hours ago, Weyland Yutani (DayZ) said:

Can you give us a screenshot? I'm interested in what you're seeing. Thanks.

Sure, here's a screenshot at 1:30am. 

[elaintahra 4]

On 2/26/2019 at 5:55 PM, BetterDeadThanZed said:

Also, life-hack: Use F12 to take a screenshot in-game 🙂

Dude 🙂 That would't help in this case at all 

[aux7 234]

Looks like I need a new monitor . . . . . mine is from I dont remember when . .

Edited February 28, 2019 by aux7

[Weyland Yutani (DayZ) 1159]

On 2/28/2019 at 6:44 AM, BetterDeadThanZed said:

Sure, here's a screenshot at 1:30am. 

Thanks for the screen and the reply.

So I grabbed the latest version and tested on a test server. I'm really digging it. Got the Increased Lumens with it. I like the Midnight Sun settings for after April 7th. I think I'm settled on April 16th.

 

Edited March 4, 2019 by Weyland Yutani (DayZ)

[Manamosy 3]

Yeah my monitor auto brightens when it turns to night and I can see fine at night. If I turn that feature off then night is pitch black.

I keep it off either way because I prefer the immersion and actually giving a reason for night to be more difficult.

Also tip for others, make sure your room is dark, so lights off and curtains closed etc so that you light isn't bouncing off your monitor screen, this should help playing at night.

[Guy Smiley 534]

Listen to what he says about this monitor, 

 

[Survivor1431 116]

I thought deeply about this dilemma and have arrived at an effective solution. It is really quite simple, the developers implement a Battle-Eye hardware scan feature which scans the brightness of a player's screen throughout the night. If their brightness exceeds a certain threshold the player will receive a warning message: "You have exceeded the brightness limit, which is considered a form of cheating. You have 1 minute to turn down your brightness to an acceptable level before being banned" Then after 1 minute if the player doesn't turn down their gamma they receive a global ban for 30 min. The second ban is 24 hours, third ban 1 week, fourth ban is permanent.

 Believe me, players will be sure not to cheat if there are consequences.

[Cyral 10]

On 3/18/2019 at 10:11 PM, Survivor1431 said:

I thought deeply about this dilemma and have arrived at an effective solution. It is really quite simple, the developers implement a Battle-Eye hardware scan feature which scans the brightness of a player's screen throughout the night. If their brightness exceeds a certain threshold the player will receive a warning message: "You have exceeded the brightness limit, which is considered a form of cheating. You have 1 minute to turn down your brightness to an acceptable level before being banned" Then after 1 minute if the player doesn't turn down their gamma they receive a global ban for 30 min. The second ban is 24 hours, third ban 1 week, fourth ban is permanent.

 Believe me, players will be sure not to cheat if there are consequences.

..what

Your PC has no concept of what gamma setting you have set your monitor to.

On very few modern monitors, are the adjustments controlled by the PC.
Most monitors the gamma adjustment, brightness etc. is controlled on the monitors control board and the PC has no knowledge of the fact that you, with your MSI mag27Cq monitor, have the gamma setting set to 1.8 as opposed to 2.2 and in doing so gives you brighter nights than Johnny on his Benq 7120 with his gamma setting set to 'medium'. etc.

 

I don't think you quite understand what you're suggesting...

[SavageBeastZero 5]

Hey all,

 

I was recently researching, purchasing monitors, testing them and then of course with the eventual intent on keeping the monitor which I felt was good for my overall use case scenarios. During this period, I decided to test DayZ (as well as many other games). Anyways, this was a few months back, but I personally learned quite a bit during this hands on experience and the countless hours of research I delved into during that period. Sadly, I didn't take pictures of DayZ for reference for comparisons sake, as it never occurred to me that these tests would have been useful for others on the net. Either way, I thought that my experience might possibly bring to light why there's such a large disparity between users in regards to how they're visually experiencing night time since the changes. I think I might be able to bring a few things to "light" (pun intended), so everyone has a clearer picture as to why these changes are affecting some more than others, sometimes to almost game breaking levels. 

 

The issue stems from varying panel types and their ability or lack thereof in comparison to display colors, lumens, black levels etc. CRT, VA, IPS, Quantum DOT IPS, PLS, AHVA all have differing properties which can have varying benefits, as well as negative aspects. No one panel type is the defacto, excelling in all areas, but of course some excel in certain areas more than other panel types. Even panels utilizing the same technologies can vary greatly due to manufacturer, as well as other aspects such as maximum lumens and black levels produced, panel native color bit rate, as well as native refresh. 

 

Anyways, to stay focused on why the night time changes are affecting many players differently, sometimes drastically so to unfair degrees are a few key aspects of the areas mentioned above. Color reproduction ability, maximum lumens and black levels produced and more as I'll explain. Below, I'll provide examples of the most commonly used panel types, their strengths and weaknesses, following up with why after the night time changes were made, some players are at a severe advantage/disadvantage. Of course all examples below I'll be speaking of the maximum upper tier enthusiast grade monitors and their coinciding panel types currently available for best comparison. Yet, regardless, the examples will provide a general description of what each excel and struggle with.

 

Refresh Rate and Pixel Transition - Color Reproduction - Maximum Lumens - Black Levels able to be produced - etc.

 

• TN Strengths: Industry leading refresh rates and low latency provides less an image which is represented with the least amount of native motion blur. The Pixel transition time is excellent ensuring a smoother appearing image, most specially during fast changes which need to be made, such as in FPS titles during an engagement.
• TN Weaknesses: Lackluster/flat colors - Poor viewing angles which tend to misrepresent not only colors, but also black levels produced on differing areas of the screen which can provide an inconsistent overall image and can worsen depending on the scenario such as ambient lighting.

 

• VA Strengths: Industry leading black levels with best overall contrast ratios available - Acceptable viewing angles which can provide the end user with a more reliable image in comparison to TN panel types - Acceptable Color reproduction
• VA Weaknesses: Poor panel latency and pixel transition times - Pronounced motion blur due to the aforementioned issues - Panels which possess high refresh rates may appear to be represented in a less than acceptable state due to the aforementioned issues.

 

• IPS Strengths: Industry leading superior color accuracy and consistency - Industry leading viewing angles provide a reliable image at all angles - Fairly high refresh rates which are represented nicely due to acceptable panel latency and pixel transition times, but still are generally not in the same class as enthusiast grade TN panel types
• IPS Weaknesses: All IPS panel types will have varying degrees of back light glow in one or more of the corners, said backlight can also cause a "sheen" or "Vaseline" effect when viewing content. Generally speaking, this is only noticeable in dark environments, but will be even further amplified when viewing dark content rendering viewing the image much more difficult. This can be reduced by increasing the ambient lighting in a room, but sadly will not correct it totally when viewing darker image content.

 IPS

So, with the examples above, although generally speaking overall IPS panels have more areas that they excel and are generally considered the superior overall panel technology, the area that is an inherent weakness would be displayed for exactly half the time a player is engaging with DayZ (night time), thus would be the least suitable for this use case scenario (DayZ night time). In some extreme conditions, DayZ night time could potentially be unplayable depending on the panels contrast ratio and of course severity of glow, as well as sheen. That extremity may only be seen in entry level-mid tier IPS panel types, but sadly that specific demographic would be the mass populous of users utilizing IPS panel types due to their adoption, considering their lower prices and availability. Yet, even still, this ill effect would be seen to some degree on even the highest end IPS panels in poor ambient lighting conditions.

TN

TN panel types, although generally only excel at high refresh and low latency would still be a better suited panel type for DayZ in comparison to IPS, because they wouldn't misrepresent the image during a dark scene and most certainly wouldn't require a change in ambient light to represent the image properly. Color accuracy would be satisfactory enough to provide an enjoyable experience.

VA

Finally VA panel types would provide the most superior viewing experience during night time due to their rich blacks, thus although their color reproduction pales in comparison to IPS panel types wouldn't be affected by the night time changes, because they could easily represent the darker image properly and colors would appear more vibrant. This would ensure that the global illumination intended by the developers would be represented properly, thus the night time changes wouldn't appear as drastic as it would on an IPS display. In this one specific use case scenario VA panel types would excel beyond their competing panel technologies.

 

So, when considering everything above, there is a drastic disparity in comparison to DayZ players utilizing differing panel types, thus why there is such a differing opinion in regards to the night time changes. Some are effected much more than others (Low-Mid Tier IPS Users) and sadly, the developers most definitely didn't take these respective technologies into consideration when making the changes to night time. To ensure an experience that's virtually equal (visually) across all panel types, providing a more even and playable game, the developers need to make some changes to ensure global illumination and black level depth is being represented on a similar scale to ensure visibility, because as it currently stands after the night time changes were made, each player utilizing their respective panel type is experiencing DayZ at a much different base quality level once night time occurs.

In Closing

In closing, I just wanted to add that I have no specific bias, nor does this issue affect me, as although I did purchase an IPS display, I chose the Alienware AW3418DW, which possesses an enthusiast grade LG IPS panel and the issues mentioned above aren't detrimental to my experience as they would be for 90%+- of the IPS displays currently and previously available. This was literally written in hopes that more could understand where people are coming from, as even I (before these tests), thought that it was just the usual DayZ community moaning because those affected wanted their gamma exploit back. Sadly, a lot of our community have likely left DayZ soley because they literally couldn't play it anymore and that's not right. Bohemia need to do better for those loyal players that now never get to experience DayZ after all those years of waiting. We as a community need to consider this when moving forward and implore Bohemia to reassess,  and this time thoroughly conduct testing to ensure that all DayZ players that have loyally supported them are visually experiencing DayZ (night time) in a manner that's playable for everyone. Sadly, they did not test properly before the committing to this change whatsoever and that's unacceptable on a development level. 

 

I hope my experiences have cleared some of this up and that this helps everyone understand that there is in fact a very large disparity between users and for some, may have completely made DayZ unplayable after the night time changes were made.

 

😎Anyways, have a great day people. See you in Cherno!😎

[cirkular 178]

Good job @SavageBeastZero 🙂that's exactly my problem with cheap old Dell IPS screen I've got. 

We all wanted a solution to prevent others exploiting gamma settings during night time in Dayz, but unfortunately that made it unplayable for some 😄