Buff flashlights/headlights via "reflective" patches

The quick pitch:

Flashlights and headlights aren't too useful right now, they give away your position for minimal benefit.When aiming a flashlight (or headlight) at a target, certain small predefined sections on them should be brightened.

The man in this read-life example is too much easier to see. In-game I'm thinking of much smaller areas.

More details:

• It could be a much cheaper effect than increasing flightlight power/distance.
• Differs from IRNV because it doesn't let the flashlight-holder be sneaky.
• [Optional] You could restrict it so that only person with the flashlight or headlights sees anything different, for performance/balance reasons.
• [Optional] Please fix the flashlight on/off state control too. Right now it keeps flipping back on whenever you switch weapons, etc. It needs to be much more persistent.

Implementation thoughts:

Now, I don't know the innards of Forgelight's deferred-lighting/g-buffer/shaders but I think there's a good chance this could be done cheaply and efficiently, because:

• It only affects the target, unlikely a "stronger flashlight" which would also affect terrain, world geometry, etc.
• It is possible to ignore the normals of the target and give a flat addition to luminosity.
• Reflective patches can be defined via a texture mask on the model
• If necessary, only the person with the flashlight or headlight needs to see any difference. This can be lore-justified based on the materials being very good at reflecting light back towards its source.

The problem with flashlights isn't that they aren't "offensive" enough, it's that they inhibit what little "defense" one has. Given you die in less than a second from gunfire, having a beacon telling everyone where you are at is suicide.

Assuming flashlights are working and are default in the off state and then remembered when swapping weapons, they should basically blind anyone that looks at it, much like a flash grenade but less effect time. I'd like to see if someone looks at a player shining a flash light in their eyes from a specified range or closer, that their screen goes just a little blurry and bright as long as they are looking at said flashlight and then 3 seconds after looking away from the light source.

That's what real flashlights are mostly for, correct? Blinding others during battles? Headlights on vehicles could work the same as well, a very short temporary blurring effect, though since there are so many vehicles sometimes, I'd think it would cause more troubles for all infantry.

Addition: Flashlights could also be much more effective against IRNV causing the blurring effect to last 6-8 seconds if the person happens to be looking through an IRNV scope when hit by a flashlight.

Looking at your picture, all I can think of is an NC Sundy driver going down the road and coming up on a pack of VS infantry. They look like sparkly fireflies as their reflective safety strips shine brightly in his headlights. Like most NC, he was terrorized and bullied by fireflies when he was a child. He slowly pushes the gas pedal to the floor, smiling at the sound of screams and reflective bits hitting his windshield.

My complaint is that, in most games, blinding mechanics tend to, well...destroy more fun than they create.

I'd add one more to that list of conditions, though: You shouldn't be able to blind friendlies. Ever. It's far too grief-able. Not only is it impossible for the anti-grief system to detect, but a griefer can easily use it to suicide-by-teammate to get other people in trouble.

I agree as well, MAG was like that when flashbangs came out. Wild throws causing blindness to fellow teammates. I guess the question is, how do flashbangs work in Planetside? I know I was hit by one before and my screen went all blurry for a bit. I would think that just like normal grenades they hit friendlies as well.

Another note to add is that mounted flashlights would only blind if someone was aiming their weapon, not if they were aiming from the hip.

I'd like to see a flashlight buff, as they are pretty useless now, as long as they stay dimmer than the sun, any BF3 player will know what I'm talking about, the flashlights were way too bright in that game.

Nc already look like that at night.

They don't have to blind, but much like car headlights at night staring at then should make it hard to discern whats behind.

I've been running flashlight on my MCG for a week now, primarily because then people are dying to an MCG with a flashlight and they should feel bad. It provides near 0 benefit while making you stand out like a sore thumb.

It needs a buff!

have the secondary colors become more illuminated. NC has yellow, VS has cyan (not enough of it imo), TR has red. For camo that makes the entire outfit more or less one color ie. Alpha Squad, just keep the illuminated parts restricted to what it would be otherwise.

Nights should be much darker. Would be an easy way to buff a range of things without actually changing them.

This game would be a lot safer if everyone wore reflective belts. I'll send this up my chain of command.

Now, why would an army design its gear like that on purpose? "Hey bob, let's add some reflective stuff on there, just cause it looks cool"

I was thinking: in this game you usually move in groups anyway, right? So most of the time you're not going to be particularly stealthy anyway. Save for the ninja-capping and occasional sneaking around ofcourse. To be fair, you will spend most of the time blatanly shooting it out with masses of enemies thus giving your position more or less constantly, and relying more on your ability to kill the enemy bofore they kill you. So in that sense the flashlight is not THAT bad.

But it still leaves quite a bitter taste when I think about it. For example, there is many a time when I simply don't see a VS or TR player at night and get shot in the back for it. While it is true that with a flashlight I could see them, it would be substantially easier for them to see me, as I would have to point directly at them and at close range to achieve effect and they would need only look in my general direction. On top of that, when running in a group, being the one with a flashlight warrants, in my opinion, two possibilities: you're going to be the first target due to simply being outstanding or people you are in a group with are going to avoid you for giving up their position. And nobody wants to be excluded in a game like PS2. It defeats the purpose.

So it is pretty clear to me: the flashlight needs something. I don't know what, but it does. Many people would love to use it, including me, but as it stands the disadvantages are so big while you gain almost nothing positive other than looking cool for using it.

The army uses tactical lights to illuminate but mostly to blind targets. It was done in Battlefield 3 and people loved it. No, really. I say we make them do just that in Planetside 2. Make them a bit more illuminating and the cone of light tighter as well as less visible at long distances.

Or, we could have faction-specific flashlights which could only illuminate things for players of that faction. That way it'd still look cool while not being a major set-back.

With the high quality lighting effects, it's possible to hide a Liberator in the sun in Indar.

In fact lighting effects take so little processing power they should be locked at Ultra and then we could blind each other.

The blinding I am talking about has tactical significance. I couldnt care less about your preferences, no offense.

You just had to go and show everyone the guy at SOE wearing the VS Infiltrator suit, didn't you?

Because they already do in real-life? Just pretend the flashlight has some magic--I mean, nanites--so that the visible beam is actually a brute-force method of triggering a visible response from every faction's IFF patches/beacons/emitters.

My hope with the reflective-patches / IFF-detection-beam / whatever it's basically a way to extend the practical reach of the light without incurring big performance costs.

Hahaha, yeah, that's one way of putting it, why I remember whe--