Thoughts on the new old nights and black nights.

So, as anyone who's logged on to the PTS and gone to Indar would know, dark nights are back! Which is awesome, because my flashlight now actually has a use, and night combat feels far more like... well, night combat. However...


There's more that can be done here.

First off, I've got nothing against the new old night - it's a more than welcome change, and I'd love to see it go live - however, the point of this thread is to build upon it to make night time combat even more distinct from daylight combat by introducing what I'm going to call a "black" night. So, without further ado, here's a list for you to bite into:

1. Make it even darker than it is currently, to the point at which it is literally pitch-black at night. As in, ArmA II pitch-black. For reference: (this isn't me, intro ends at 00:10 - the only important thing here are the first couple of minutes of actual gameplay, so feel free to ignore the commentary.) This will entail completely removing ambient (sourcless) lighting, thus preventing people from cheating their way out of it by +gammaing and having constant night vision.
2. Add a new shoulder-mounted/helmet-mounted flashlight that is always available and has it's own keybind, so that new players and players that haven't certed into the flashlight won't be screwed. Give it longer range and higher brightness than the current flashlight. It has been suggested that the mounted flashlight be upgradeable with certifications to make the beam wider, longer, and stronger, but I'd advise against this as it will result in some players having a distinct advantage over others at night time, and is otherwise forcing certs onto something that doesn't need them. It has also been suggested that the mounted flashlights have cosmetic options such as faction colour tints and patterns... please, no. We already have the Lasher. We don't need discoside2.
3. Either scrap the weapon-mounted flashlight entirely and refund certs spent on it, or allow it to blind enemies in close quarters, a la BF3.
4. Add more lights to bases. This is something that needs to happen even if the current night goes live. Basses are way too dark as is and shouldn't be affected nearly as much by the night.
5. Increase the amount of cyan on VS soldiers. I'm sure you can guess why. No glowing bits, please. Another thing that needs to happen if the current night goes live.
6. Substantially increase the strength of headlights on vehicles - they're far too dim and short-ranged ATM.
7. Rework how night vision optics work. The HS/NV scope should unlimited range, but not unlimited range for highlighting people. Also, give us different zoom levels of HS/NV - 2x, 3.4x, 4x, 6x, 7x, 8x, 10x, and 12x (for sniper rifles). The range of highlighting should not scale with zoom level. Move the night vision and thermal vision vehicle optics to their own slot and give them their own keybinding - in this case, the NV optics would have an unlimited range, but the thermal optics would be limited, as they are now.
8. Make HS/NV, night vision, and thermal vision completely unusable during daytime. This will give people incentive to have different night time and day time loadouts.
9. Add deployable flares as a universal certification which don't take up an inventory slot and don't cost infantry resources to resupply. This will let people light up dark areas should the so desire. Bonus points for faction-coloured light.

Alright, I think that about covers it. Big thanks to Forumsider LucasPiazon, who thought up many of these changes, and motivated me to make this thread. It wouldn't have happened without ya, man.

SO, what are your thoughts? Approve? Disapprove? Constructive feedback? Senseless flaming? I'm eager to hear.

I approve of this, except on two points.

I would make a small suggestion for the sniper scops and NV, though. I would extend the range of the NV a little, but make the scopes 100 certs instead of 30.

Second, as you can see by my sig and posting style, any encroachment by unholy colors on the mighty 's purple vanu soldiers is heresy of the highest order.

Very good points, LMAO'd at the second one. I'm honestly on the fence about making the HS/NV scopes cost 100 certs a piece... I feel more inclined to just leave that up to SOE's infinite wisdom </sarcasm>.

If the choice is between implementing all of this and continuing to use the lighting that is currently on live, i'm sure the choice will be the latter. this is way too complex to implement for the time being. we still don't have hossin and we also have no inter-continental meta yet. so, idk ... i'd expect that they either go with the slightly darker night or not change lighting at all. there's just too much other stuff on their plates.

I know, and I don't expect them to do all of this right now, this thread is here for the express purpose of throwing concepts and ideas around regarding how I feel the dark nights could be made even better. By all means, if SOE actually decides to use any of this, I fully expect it to not show up until after the next live update. Unless the amount of time until the next live update is much longer than we think.

/aprove

Keep this thread alive just like the bring backt the beta night thread guys.
Contributing with setting comparisons of the "darker" night.

Thanx for the shout out. This is a fantastic summary of the main ideas that we all want, whereas my post went into some smaller, more contraversial ideas. My post also layed out the tactical, and visual aspect of darker nights, and how they are suppose to be entirely different experiences.

If a new pitch black night was to be implemented, there needs to be a way for people who don't like it to go somewhere that is day time. I suggested multiple clear indications of the time of day and brightness level for each continent, so people who don't like night fights can go fight during day time on another continent. It's a comprimise that I think could work. If anybody reading wants to see the original post, here: https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2...ck-the-beta-night.109783/page-66#post-2214638
I just hope SOE sees these posts and listens.

Dammit, now I remember what I was forgetting! I knew it! Why can't I remember these things? And I can't edit my OP...

http://3.bp.************/_yhfaur8OkQ0/SvxDzPUUAbI/AAAAAAAAAsc/GUHe_eon2x8/s320/FUUUU.jpg

Oh well, at least it's been mentioned.

Ok I wrote this in the original darker nights thread but I will paste it here as well in case SOE decides to watch this thread instead of the old one.

I also wanted front lights for ESFs, and spot lights for Libs and Gals so they can light up the battlefield for everyone. These front lights and spot lights should blind people when looking directly at them as well.

Bases should also be given strong spot lights which can be destroyed but can light up attackers for ally troops. People using these spot lights should be given something like 2 or 5exp for each enemy killed in the area lightened up by them.

This would not only add more tactical play to the game but also more cool looking fights.

So SOE, if you're reading this then leave the darker nights as they are on test server for now, add more lighting, NV options and these spot lights for vehicles and bases, then darken the nights even further as they were in beta so everyone can enjoy this game even more.

So as usual, low settings will give you a distinctive advantage.

I'm sorry but the whole BF flashlight blinding thing is just stupid. I've suggested before that when an Amp Station get's captured all adjacent enemy territory gets the power shut off.

Flashlights should only blind NV which in my oppinion is a must. Also, I like really dark nights, but pitch black seems to me like too much. You can make it really hard to see and still need flashlights but pitch black just seems excesive in my oppinion. There are a lot of bases around and the moon is quite luminous, why would it be pitch black?

Because... immersion... and things... Seriously though, it doesn't actually have to be black, I just personally think it will have the most profound effect on night combat.

The trouble with night fights is how the graphics card affects lighting, how general graphics settings influence general visibility, how the in-game brightness settings influence visibility, and how monitor brightness and contrast settings influence visibility. There ARE ways to make it difficult for people to unfairly increase visibility with brightness and contrast settings, etc., but it requires a lot of fine tuning and possibly some major code changes depending on exactly how the engine handles lighting. My understanding it was the concern with these sort of 'soft hacks' that made SOE abandon the whole 'dark nights' thing when the game went live in the first place.

Personally I think this game NEEDS dark nights at some point, but if they are going to implement them they need to do it right. If they cannot currently put forth the time and effort to do it correctly I'd rather they put it off until after the other optimizations and whatever are finished.

This doesn't really matter seeing as how people can either just turn up their brightness or gamma to circumvent the darker nights. So that just makes people's fight for darker nights a moot point.

Which is why you need to completely eliminate sourceless lighting - turning up the gamma in such a case will have minimal effect, if any at all.

The game is really more darker ? Because the brightness standart now is 0.5, and I play on live with 0.20. I have seen no difference with the brightness on 0.20, I should have.

If is to make darker nights, then, make it like beta, real like beta, but put a lot of lights in the bases and facilitys, done. CQC keeps the same, and small bases and open field... pitch black.

The Amp Station could have a pitch black when ALL the generators are destroyed.