15 min of playing...over 2 hours of black misery

[Alexey Zemanov 6]

Fiddle with your brightness/gamma settings (put them to max) at night and you can see. Isn't that common sense?

MUST ... TELL ... HIM ... FIRENDLY ... THAT ... THAT'S ... NOT ... TRUE.

[Coleman (DayZ) 14]

Fiddle with your brightness/gamma settings (put them to max) at night and you can see. Isn't that common sense?

MUST ... TELL ... HIM ... FIRENDLY ... THAT ... THAT'S ... NOT ... TRUE.

Let me correct myself. It works as long as there's ambient light (like a muthafucking starlight scope).

[Cyanide (DayZ) 0]

I love the night as it is. Maybe its a good idea to disable the gamma/brightness options on some hardcore servers because some can see more clearly at night than others because of it. Last night I was running through a pitch-black forrest whilst not knowing in which direction I was going (it was very cloudy). Stopping every 10meters or so to turn on my flashlight and look around me. That was extremely exhilarating. I can only imagine playing like that with friends.. that'd be so intense :]

[Alexey Zemanov 6]

After an hour of staring at nearly nothing' date=' I could finally separate the edges of trees in the distance.

I don't think the level of darkness presented in the game during overcast night is very "fun"... but I've been in that real life situation.

[/quote']

So you see shades of black ingame?

Reading this and other comments i get the impression that your ingame night is not like my ingame night. For me there are no shades for anything on ground (only exception are floor tiles in churches). Pulling gamma 'n stuff up to full just makes the sky a lot brighter, and the black ground also, but doesn't add any variation in shades. Then just everything is the same grey.

[Cill_Bomptom 0]

You should uninstall this game and try call of duty.

[Digger_Nick 0]

You must be mad mang

[sarlac 10]

This thread is amazing...

[grom64 8]

Pitch dark night might be related to newest beta patch: 93666,

New tone mapping was introduced in latest patch.

If you revert to previous beta:93616 it's much more manageable.

night 93666:

night 93616:

*If you don't see difference between pictures turn monitor brigtness up.

note: HDR set to Very High in both pictures

Official thread for beta 93666

[Tax (DayZ) 0]

Turn gamma and brightness up in your video options. It should help you see MUCH better at night.

That's what all the big kids do.....unless you wanna be REALLY hardcore, then turn your gamma and brightness all the way down.;p

[gr0g88 0]

Wow...I owe some buddies 40 bucks.

So we have a decent time trying to accommodate this abortion of a user interface when suddenly there are no daytime servers.

Spend the next 2 and a half hours in total darkness asking if we see each others flares and attempting to respawn closer to each other.

Good times...hopefully they can forgive me since they promptly gave me shit for wasting their time with this.

I have camped many nights out in the wood in real life and it was never as pitch black as this game. I could have played with my monitor off and seen better. At least have some areas with modest lighting for christ's sake.

And you server guys...do any of you have jobs. Do you only run the servers during the day so the unemployed college kids get to enjoy the daylight? At least specify if you have a time offset in your server's name.

Pretty frustrated because the premise is fantastic...but the reality is nothing like the cherry-picked YouTube videos show you.

Ignore the flames of other posters. Your story was very similar to my first few days trying to play. It gets better with time, and it really helps to have a buddy play with you to talk and show you the ropes.

[LeGrande 0]

Usually tunring up the gamma value helps, but yesterday it was really really really dark. Couldn't see anything. Gave up and joined a server in a different time zone. I can understand the OPs rant, playing in absolute darkness without any flashlights or night vision isn't possible.

[terrvik 2409]

So. Everyone rants about how this game is "hardcore" then turn their gamma up because it's too dark otherwise. Way to be elitist hypocrits.

[cultiv8ed 0]

Not sure if someone mentioned this on a previous page but as well as gamma being turned up, you need to set HDR to very high.

As a current NVG owner, all I can say is :P

(I fully expect to lose them soon though) :D

[Alexey Zemanov 6]

you need to set HDR to very high.

If that gives me shades of grey i owe you my fraking beans.

[kanyin 0]

Wow...I owe some buddies 40 bucks.

So we have a decent time trying to accommodate this abortion of a user interface when suddenly there are no daytime servers.

Spend the next 2 and a half hours in total darkness asking if we see each others flares and attempting to respawn closer to each other.

Good times...hopefully they can forgive me since they promptly gave me shit for wasting their time with this.

I have camped many nights out in the wood in real life and it was never as pitch black as this game. I could have played with my monitor off and seen better. At least have some areas with modest lighting for christ's sake.

And you server guys...do any of you have jobs. Do you only run the servers during the day so the unemployed college kids get to enjoy the daylight? At least specify if you have a time offset in your server's name.

Pretty frustrated because the premise is fantastic...but the reality is nothing like the cherry-picked YouTube videos show you.

A

L

P

H

A

[lexxer 25]

Its a freakin' HORROR ZOMBIE game you pussies. Its supposed to be dark and scary. I hope they nerf the shit out of Gamma adjustment so it is pitch fucking black and people are forced to use flashlights, flares, etc. Right now they are pointless with gamma adjustments.

If you want to learn the fucking UI start up ARMA2 and play for an hour.

[punisher_1 3]

Nice to see the trolls getting out from their bridge today!

Yes the game has a steep learning curve and playing at night does not help.

Connecting to a server is shit at the moment, yes I said shit total shit really compaired with other games don't argue you know I'm right.

The thing is there is no way to tell if the server is light or dark. Secondly the servers have issues ( Old versions, old arma updates, ect) so you might not connect at all. Or in some cases get randomly kicked off because they do not want dirty pub players around.

I might spend 10 to 30 minutes just looking for a decent server.

[russkinnor 0]

DayZ you either love or hate, basing an argument after 15 mins of playing it really isnt giving it a chance. That being said.....

1. You should play a few of the actual missions in Arma 2 OA to get used to the controls. Yes they are a bit clunky for your standard BF/COD controls so take the time to get used to it.

2. Use the forums to your advantage, "read" the starter information or respawning threads. Forums are your friend, out of game maps are your friend, knowledge is power.

3. Server times are normally linked to actual time zone of the server. If you are on a dark one, look for one in a time zone that isnt dark.

4. It sounds like you and your friends lack patience, which you need in truckloads for this game at times. One or more of you will die, many times over and then have to figure out how to get back to you. I have 6-8 guys that are in my group and the last firefight we got into, we lost 3. We won but now we have close to half the numbers and are halfway up the map. Meanwhile you cant just wait for the others to meet you, typically you move back to a safe(and i use that term loosely) exfil point and then work things out.

So to wrap things up, you are more than capable of fixing the problems you are having. Arm yourself with a little knowledge, some beans and a dirty magazine and get to it.

Love and kisses from the "YOU ARE DEAD" screen,

Russ

PS. I once saw a romanian shoot Punisher_1 in the back of the head while looting, true story.

[lockie1976 39]

Lastly' date=' get used to playing at night, it's a big fat pain, but exponentially safer.

[/quote']

Damn straight it is... I f'ing hate daytime.

[PeteOfButcherBay 17]

lol at all the gamma warriors.

[pogoman979 4]

lol because soon everyone will be forced to use beta 666 which renders gamma tweaks useless. I'll be ready with my DMR, m4sd and nvgs XD

[Sinaz20 0]

After an hour of staring at nearly nothing' date=' I could finally separate the edges of trees in the distance.

I don't think the level of darkness presented in the game during overcast night is very "fun"... but I've been in that real life situation.

[/quote']

So you see shades of black ingame?

Reading this and other comments i get the impression that your ingame night is not like my ingame night. For me there are no shades for anything on ground (only exception are floor tiles in churches). Pulling gamma 'n stuff up to full just makes the sky a lot brighter, and the black ground also, but doesn't add any variation in shades. Then just everything is the same grey.

Well, last night, I was on a server that was overcast-- even in 3rd person, I couldn't see ME... and I know my character as dressed mostly in khakis.

Everything was black except for the sky and vertical surfaces.

Despite this crippling darkness, I encountered a guy who was exceptionally more comfortable in the darkness than I was.

First, he spotted me by swiping his flashlight down a street.

Then he started tossing flares at me, flushing me through a building and into active evasion.

He kept tossing flares uncannily close to me. I kept managing to get back into pitch blackness and cover, but I could tell he was able to track my silhouette as I moved because he basically chased me with flares.

I managed to get behind a wall, but when he finally caught up with me, he spotted me first and killed me with no resistance.

Hats off to this guy. I learned something valuable from him... and now I really look forward to another pitch black server so I can put this experience into practice. I feel like I was doing everything right-- and it came down to a coin toss whether or not I managed to ambush him. There was a point where it seemed like he lost me-- there was a long period before he threw another searching flare. I had been covered by the corner of a building and I was scanning the source direction for the flare. I probably was completely undiscovered. Instead of waiting him out and catching him on the move, I decided to seek better cover to avoid the flare. I think at that point I exposed myself and lost any initiative I had gained.

Sorry-- that turned into a story.

TL;DR: Some people are really freaking good at engaging in pitch blackness because they are bold and clever.

[Edit]After re-reading my last paragraph, I'm just acknowledging that obviously I DID do something wrong :P[/edit]

[walrus2517 27]

Your complaints seem to be broken down into a few points. As someone who never played Arma before Day Z I'll try to answer them.

1)The nights are too dark - people have been complaining about this since day 1. Rocket says he likes it so accept it and don't expect changes. Find a few good inverted time servers, write them down, problem solved. Or, learn to play at night. The zeds are harder to see, but it's much safer from bandits.

2)It takes forever to group up - people have been complaining about all the running since day 1 too, but if the map was any smaller, the bandit problem would be 10x larger. You need to accept this as well.

3)The UI/Inventory system sucks - while the Arma vets will defend it, I agree on this one. Rocket has made a few changes to make it easier but I still can't figure out how to move my flashlight from my backpack without losing my sidearm and all my ammo. I did read that Arma 3 is supposed to have a vastly improved system. While this doesn't help the mod in it's current alpha state, know that the final product will be much better.

4)I got frustrated and quit - this mod does have a learning curve. While I never played any of the original campaigns, I did at least go through the Arma II in-game tutorials. However, if you and your playmates have already lost patience with this game it probably is best you move on to something simpler. Not only does this mod require learning a unique system, but the gameplay itself requires immense patience. Expect to crawl for 20 straight minutes. Expect a bandit to snipe you the first moment you feel safe. Expect a bug to hit you and destroy a character you've spent 10+ hours building up. In other words, expect to find yourself waking up alone on the coast, many, many times. If you and your friends can't handle that, try another game.

5)I wasted $40 - this is a new one, primarily because every outlet was selling Arma II Combined Ops for only $30 when Day Z first came out, and Amazon had it for $15 just a week later. Unless you live in Australia, you need to find a new video game outlet. If you paid $40, you did get ripped off, not because Arma II and Day Z aren't fantastic, but because you literally paid more than market value.

[Masi_23 3]

I didnt read over all the replies, but doesnt ARMA replicate moon cycles? Nights vary in brightness. From very dark (total darkness - need lights) up to a point where you can see your shadow because of the moon (no need for lights or what not). That's how it is for me. I spend most of my gaming time under the cover of darkness as it is much safer. I never use flares btw, only chem lights.

[Reign19k 1]

Arma has moon cycles. Moonlight is also affected by cloud cover as well.

There are some nights you can literally see like it's daytime, just in black and white.