Brightness is OP. Make it unavailable at night.

[RyanX]

"Just don't turn it up" you say?

 

I say "Helps the streamers, hurts the players."  Corporate like that.

 

If I played only single player, that would be fine.  But I don't.  Everyone and their mother turns it up so nighttime looks like daytime.  We go do a quest or run around at night, my buddies (and other players) can see fine, getting the kills before I do.  They don't need lights, and I can't see to them to stay in the group at the (more reasonable) settings I prefer.  On PvP?  No way you can be on equal footing.  But I know PvP is not the focus, before you plan on saying anything about that.  So I am talking about MP as a whole...PvE included.

 

What happened to the scary zombie game I was playing in A15-ish?  If you had raw meat, the zombies could smell it and came at you...or when they could smell your dysentery (eww).  I mean, fine, take that out if you want, but turning off the darkness....really?  If I'm in a dark house at night, NO WAY should I be able to see without light.  NO WAY!  And I don't want to be hanging back behind my party because I think nighttime should be dark.

 

Best solution imo is to make Brightness unavailable at night.  Make the nights shorter if you want.  This way the streamers could show everything for most of the day (turning brightness up if needed) and then at night...well, they have to use a light of course.  But the night is short.  Streamers still get good visuals, and players get the scary night time.

[JCrook1028]

Another step into Looter/Shooter land imo. Not a fan.

[Fenris]

Seems like making it a server setting would be a better option. Just a check box in the set up menu so streamers could turn it up, and people who don't want bright nights could play on servers where it's not allowed.

[RyanX]

20 minutes ago, JCrook1028 said:

Another step into Looter/Shooter land imo. Not a fan.

Not sure what that means.  Why not just take out nighttime completely then?  Make it a fantasy world where the sun shines all day.

 

[Bashtiks]

For one, i dont like oversaturated colors in a19, so turn gamma up to make them look less like "" hello kitty"" theme ..

[RyanX]

1 minute ago, Fenris said:

Seems like making it a server setting would be a better option. Just a check box in the set up menu so streamers could turn it up, and people who don't want bright nights could play on servers where it's not allowed.

That's one possible solution.

 

Just now, Bashtiks said:

For one, i dont like oversaturated colors in a19, so turn gamma up to make them look less like "" hello kitty"" theme ..

I agree on the colors.  That's why I like the "adjustable during the day, default at night" approach.

[Teal]

Is this an actual issue?

 

[RyanX]

Just now, Teal said:

Is this an actual issue?

 

Not if you're into cheesing.

[AtomicUs5000]

With all the extra meat recently, bringing back the smell of meat as zombie attractors would be awesome.

[Teal]

Just now, RyanX said:

Not if you're into cheesing.

Play how you want and let others do the same. I can imagine a flashlight mod for your helm or weapon would be the simplest solution without the devs or server managers forcing something on everybody for the sake of the few.

[RyanX]

7 minutes ago, Teal said:

Play how you want and let others do the same. I can imagine a flashlight mod for your helm or weapon would be the simplest solution without the devs or server managers forcing something on everybody for the sake of the few.

You can only say that because that's the default setting.  The old "play how you want" is an argument that only assumes that the current setup is optimal.  How about we remove the cheese...then those who complain that it's not cheesy enough can listen to you say "if you don't like it, you don't have to play" because that's what the current settings are?  The point is that I CAN'T play how I want because everyone else is running around at max brightness, seeing things I can see even with a light on a realistic darkness setting, and night vision goggles are only a late game item, so by that time, the map is almost played out.  So to keep up, my brightness goes up and the immersion drops.

[Teacyn]

I think having the brightness setting have a reduced effect or no effect at night would be a good change. I hadn't even realized what the issue was here until I checked it for myself, if you turn Brightness up to 100% the game basically becomes fullbright. You can see perfectly fine in literally all cases, even in pitch black basements and New Moon nights.

[RyanX]

5 minutes ago, Teacyn said:

I think having the brightness setting have a reduced effect or no effect at night would be a good change. I hadn't even realized what the issue was here until I checked it for myself, if you turn Brightness up to 100% the game basically becomes fullbright. You can see perfectly fine in literally all cases, even in pitch black basements and New Moon nights.

Crazy isn't it?  I'm not sure why you would need anything brighter than what could be seen on a stream in the daytime.

[Telric]

If they remove brightness, your friends will just turn up their monitor's gamma / brightness... The real solution is to get friends that want to play in your style.

[Teacyn]

2 minutes ago, Telric said:

If they remove brightness, your friends will just turn up their monitor's gamma / brightness... The real solution is to get friends that want to play in your style.

The difference is that the in-game brightness setting actually physically increases the brightness. It seems to amplify the intensity + range of light sources, including natural light. Turning up your gamma/monitor brightness would not have anywhere near the same effect, as it would just wash things out in exchange for maybe making it slightly easier to see.

[RyanX]

10 minutes ago, Telric said:

If they remove brightness, your friends will just turn up their monitor's gamma / brightness... The real solution is to get friends that want to play in your style.

Tell that to folks on a PvP server.  They are usually large groups of nice people who will do what you say, right?

6 minutes ago, Teacyn said:

The difference is that the in-game brightness setting actually physically increases the brightness. It seems to amplify the intensity + range of light sources, including natural light. Turning up your gamma/monitor brightness would not have anywhere near the same effect, as it would just wash things out in exchange for maybe making it slightly easier to see.

Exactly this.

[Teal]

3 minutes ago, RyanX said:

Tell that to folks on a PvP server.  They are usually large groups of nice people who will do what you say, right?

Exactly this.

It sounds like your only option at this point is to adjust your brightness to whatever suits your situation. The fact that the option there is pretty great.

 

Now I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice if everybody could get what they want, but it's just not possible if something one sided is forced on everybody. If your playstyle is so important, would *not* following your friends around during the night not be in your best interest?

[RyanX]

1 minute ago, Teal said:

It sounds like your only option at this point is to adjust your brightness to whatever suits your situation. The fact that the option there is pretty great.

That's an interesting take.  So having an option for the server moderator to disable the brightness is not ok, but having an option to adjust brightness is?  Some options are ok but others are not?  Sounds like you are into all the options...except that one?

[Teal]

3 minutes ago, RyanX said:

That's an interesting take.  So having an option for the server moderator to disable the brightness is not ok, but having an option to adjust brightness is?  Some options are ok but others are not?  Sounds like you are into all the options...except that one?

Huh? It's totally fine for the mods to do whatever, it'd still be your choice whether to join that server or not. But you're assuming in this argument that it's already a thing.

 

So, you can't control the way your friends play.

You can't control how the mods or even if the mods can keep brightness locked to a certain value on your server.

What does this leave?

[JCrook1028]

8 hours ago, RyanX said:

Not sure what that means.  Why not just take out nighttime completely then?  Make it a fantasy world where the sun shines all day.

 

Yea, obviously you misread my post....

[guardianangelmp]

8 hours ago, RyanX said:

The point is that I CAN'T play how I want because everyone else is running around at max brightness, seeing things I can see even with a light on a realistic darkness setting, and night vision goggles are only a late game item, so by that time, the map is almost played out.  So to keep up, my brightness goes up and the immersion drops.

Other people increasing their brightness at night doesn't prevent you from not increasing your brightness...i.e. you get to play how you want.

 

It sounds like you like to play PvP in the game.  TFP won't balance the game for PvP because the game isn't made for PvP.

 

If you don't like playing with people that turn their brightness up, then don't play with them, or you could look for/make a mod for the game to do what you want, or you could start your own server and kick anyone who you think turns up their brightness.

 

One last thought: do you think that everyone that can outplay you during the night in game is turning up their brightness?

 

[Scyris]

9 hours ago, Teal said:

Play how you want and let others do the same. I can imagine a flashlight mod for your helm or weapon would be the simplest solution without the devs or server managers forcing something on everybody for the sake of the few.

I think the issue is more that by just uping the gamma, you can completly negate any need for a headlamp, torch or nightvision. Me? I leave gamma on default always. As I feel its cheating to up it at night. I get a headlamp or better Nightvision goggles (Which I use a easy mod to change the night vision effect to something that looks better). But yeah a server option that allows the admin to disable and lock the gamma to a certain value while on the server could work. Though I can imagine how annoying it may be to code.

[Damocles]

The question is: does the game want illumination to by and atmospheric effect, or a gamplay mechanic.

 

If its just there for atmospheric purposes, adjusting the ambient light is fine, according to player choice.

 

But if it should be a gameplay mechanic (cannot see certain things without a lightsource) is requires a hard limit.

 

That limit does not need to be a locked "gamma" (its not gamma, but an ambient light level now).

But: it should use a post processing shader, that makes a hard cutoff on dark areas of the screen. Such that below a certain light level, the pixels always get rendered black.

Even turning up the brightness would not make those dark areas visible.

To see into the those dark areas, the player would always need a lightsource.

[Black Hat]

13 hours ago, AtomicUs5000 said:

With all the extra meat recently, bringing back the smell of meat as zombie attractors would be awesome.

I agree!

[Raestloz]

It seems to me the problem isn't actually that nighttime is not dark, it's the fact that your party doesn't care about your playstyle and you're forced to sit in the back because their idea of fun is vastly different from yours?

 

So in order to force them to play the way you do, you want the option to be removed entirely? Isn't that why flashlight mods exist?